horsemouth is relieved to know that the penalty for threatening to throw acid in someone's face is a suspended sentence and some community service - or at least that's what you would gather from the case of disgraced MP claudia webbe. horsemouth fears however it may be some time before she exits public life.
she was very busy in labour (on the national executive etc.), former islington councillor too.
'in february 2021, webbe apologised after an investigation by the parliamentary commissioner for standards found that she had broken the code of conduct for MPs by her multiple late (by months) registrations of remunerations received for her role as a councillor in islington.'
it's interesting that she hasn't resigned as an MP yet.
it's a suspended sentence but it's over a year so if the appeal fails (and it could be many weeks (months even) before that comes to trial) and then if the recall petition achieves enough votes (10% of the registered voters in the constituency - so 7,438 signatures in leicester east) then claudia webbe will lose her position as an MP and there will be a by-election in her constituency.
if she wishes to stand again she would have to stand as an independent but she was a parachuted in candidate so she's unlikely to take much of the labour vote. if she wins she's back in. if she loses she's out. I think she probably won't stand.
so how long could this process take?
fiona onasanya, the former MP for peterborough, was convicted for perverting the course of justice in december 2018, her final appeal was refused in march 2019, triggering the recall process and a by election in june 2019.
because of covid and cuts to the courts system court cases can take a long time to go through these days.
so let's see how much money claudia webbe MP stands to make if it does indeed take a full six months to work through the appeals process and recall processes.
the basic MPs salary is £81,932/year - so that's just shy of £41k (nice work if you can get it). while she is on a number of committees it doesn't look like she receives extra money for this.
last year she claimed for £50,101.09 in expenses (june 2020 to end of may 2021) so that would be something like the same again then if she last out until may (and indeed it may be more, during the COVID-19 pandemic MPs were able to claim additional expenses of up to £10,000 to support the costs of them and their staff working from home.) in addition to pay for winding up staff contracts and office rent an allowance is available (up to £46,000 as of July 2011). so at least she won't be out of pocket for these expenses.
while she may not be eligible for resettlement grant (she won't be losing her seat at a general election) there may well be winding-up allowance (essentially severance pay) probably at about £12k per year 'served' - so about £24k) and then there's the pension (about £2k/year per year 'served' so about £4k).
... and then (of course) there will be the matter of how much she profits from selling either her london or her constituency (leicester east) home. seeing as she was an islington councillor for 10 years I suspect her 'main' home will be the london one.
but hey, it will be nice to see the guilty being punished (should that ever happen).
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of course it is interesting to see who actually gets recalled.
a recall petition could have been triggered in the case of owen patterson (conservative), but the house of commons, following a government whipping action, voted to reject a proposed 30-day suspension in november 2021. the government subsequently backtracked on that position and proposed a new vote, but patterson chose to resign, so no petition will occur. he obviously doesn't need the money.
a recall petition was not triggered in the case of rob roberts' (independent but formerly conservative) six-week house suspension in may 2021 as this case was judged by the independent expert panel rather than the committee on standards. this was described as an 'anomaly' in the procedure. he's still an independent MP.
MPs voted to suspend ian paisley junior (DUP later independent) from the house of commons for 30 sitting days, beginning on 4 september 2018, because he broke paid advocacy rules by receiving hospitality from the Sri Lankan government without declaring that to the commons. following his suspension, the recall of MPs act 2015 was invoked for the first time since it received royal assent. that triggered an abortive recall petition so he's still the MP for north antrim. there's a very amusing article online that argues the recall petition failed because it was effectively hidden from the public (so not enough signatures were acquired).
christopher paul davies (conservative MP for brecon and radnorshire) pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud concerning Parliamentary expenses,(march 2019) and on 21 June 2019 he was removed from office by a recall petition.
interestingly he was later selected as the conservative candidate to contest the ynys môn seat at the 2019 united kingdom general election, but stood down after other welsh conservatives criticised his selection.
and then we come to fiona onasanya (discussed above) and claudia webbe (if her appeal fails). two black women, two labour politicians and so, unlike ian paisely junior, owen patterson, rob roberts, unlikely to be protected by sectarianism, government whipping, or an 'anomaly of procedure'.
horsemouth is glad boris has been knocked back on his first attempt to knobble the parliamentary standards regulator but he will soon be back at it (and probably when the dust has settled, with labour assistance).
“make no mistake, this is not some accidental misspoken comment. this is part of an orchestrated and deliberate attempt to not only undermine the independent authority of a regulator but to influence decision-making and set a marker down for the future.”
- dave penman, the general secretary of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants.
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