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Nadine Dorries is under renewed pressure to resign, after some of her constituents have demanded the law be changed to force her to face a by-election.
The former culture secretary dramatically announced in June she was resigning from parliament “immediately” after she was denied a seat in the House of Lords.
But the close ally of Boris Johnson has yet to formally stand down from her Mid Bedfordshire seat.
Under current rules she can not be forced out unless she breaks certain rules and constituents themselves can not trigger a by-election.
A new parliamentary petition signed by almost 3,000 people has called for this to be changed.
It demands: “If MPs are absent from their constituency and parliament for 10 sitting days, we believe they are failing to provide their constituency with the representation the taxpayer is paying for.
“In this situation a recall petition should be opened so the constituency can decide whether to recall them.”
Dorries has not spoken in the Commons chamber since June 7, 2022.
Mid Bedfordshire has the highest number of signatories to the petition on the parliament website.
If 10,000 people sign then the government has to respond, if 100,000 people sign then MPs will debate the idea.
Rishi Sunak yesterday publicly criticised Dorries for not standing down, telling LBC that her constituents “aren’t being properly represented”.
“Making sure your MP is engaging with you, representing you, whether that’s speaking in parliament or being present in their constituencies doing surgeries answering your letters,” the prime minister said.
“That’s the job of an MP and all MPs should be held to that standard. At the moment people aren’t being properly represented.”
Last week Dorries’ local council also demanded she step down, as people in her constituency were being denied “effective representation” in parliament.
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