Tory MP’s lobbying sting could mean a tasty red wall by-election

Scott Benton, the Conservative MP for Blackpool South, has been caught offering lobbying services and to leak market-sensitive information in return for a fee. He was uncovered by a newspaper sting involving a fictitious company. His colleagues have condemned him and he has had the party whip removed. He has referred himself to the independent parliamentary commissioner for standards.

Was Benton venal or just foolish?

Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, will be the initial judge of that. Benton’s behaviour, caught on video, seems to have been a straightforward breach of the parliamentary code of conduct.

Benton’s only real defence is that he was a victim of entrapment because the whole set-up was bogus (which also means that he didn’t proceed with the transaction). On the other hand, the prospective fee and duties involved weren’t so outlandish as to make the sting obvious.

It’s certainly fair to say that Benton’s actions haven’t covered parliament in glory – and he failed to undertake adequate research on those who approached him.

Who is Scott Benton?

He is a populist nationalist of the familiar contemporary type: elected first in 2019; loyal to Boris Johnson; Brexiteer; wants to abolish the Human Rights Act; anti-abortion; pro-hanging; culture warrior; member of the Common Sense Group of Conservative MPs; complained to the National Trust about its being “coloured by cultural Marxism conspiracy theory dogma”.

He’s also had a few previous scrapes with the commissioner for standards. This may not endear him to the Commons committee on standards.

His seat is undergoing boundary changes, making him eligible to try to find another safer one, though he said he wasn’t standing down from Blackpool South. It’s all academic for now.

What are his chances of being cleared?

On the face of it, slim. The commissioner will reach a judgement, and it will then be up to the committee on standards to make a decision on an appropriate punishment; its report and recommendation will then need to be endorsed, amended or rejected by the whole House. The convention is that such recommendations are accepted.

Uniquely among the committees of parliament, the standards committee includes members of the public. This is because of past disquiet, after a series of scandals, over the idea that MPs should be judged capable of marking their own homework. The committee is chaired by Chris Bryant, who takes the reputation of parliament seriously.

Given past extreme revulsion at the “cash for questions” scandals of the 1990s, it is likely that the lay members of the committee will take an even dimmer view of such practices as Benton is accused of than will the MPs. With some mitigations, they’ll likely throw the book at Benton, with a lengthy suspension.

Rishi Sunak made a pledge to restore integrity, professionalism and accountability when he entered No 10, so it is doubtful that there’d be any subsequent attempt by the whips to rescue Benton.

What might happen if he is sanctioned?

As with Margaret Ferrier in Rutherglen, and potentially Boris Johnson in Uxbridge, Benton will face a recall petition in his constituency if he ends up with a nominal suspension from the Commons of 10 sitting days or 14 calendar days (or more). If 10 per cent of his electorate (5,769 in this case) sign up for the recall, a by-election will be held. Benton can stand if he likes, though he would not be the official Conservative candidate.

What is the political impact?

Labour would probably gain the seat, which is an unusually symbolic one because it’s a typical “left behind” coastal community of the sort that Johnson and his allies targeted heavily in the December 2019 general election and the 2016 EU referendum. Blackpool South returning to Labour would signal that Keir Starmer has set the party back on the road to recovery, and thus to government. He has already declared that “Tory sleaze is back” – evoking the aforementioned scandals of the Nineties, which contributed to Labour’s 1997 landslide.

Blackpool is in receipt of some funds for regeneration but, like many other such places, the work of levelling up is sometimes less than apparent. The seat is thus firmly in the cohort of formerly fairly safe Labour constituencies that fell to the Conservatives in 2019 (a Tory hadn’t won there previously since 1992).

In 2019, Benton enjoyed a majority of some 3,690, or 11.3 per cent – which, on current national trends, makes the seat highly marginal. The real interest might lie not so much in its changing hands, but in how much of a swing Labour can achieve on the ground in this kind of seat. In other words, it may answer the question of to what extent the wars over gender, immigration, and cultural values can affect outcomes in the red wall.

The Brexit Party scored a relatively healthy 6 per cent in 2019, so it would also be intriguing to see how its successor, Reform UK, might fare in the sort of place where it was at least able to save its deposit. Greens and Lib Dems are also-rans.

Interestingly, the former Labour MP for the constituency, Gordon Marsden, was listed among the “saints” to have upheld frugality during the MPs’ expenses scandal back in 2009, and enjoyed an excellent reputation for his personal conduct. The selection of candidates for any by-election is some way distant, but a contest in this seaside city does have the air of inevitability about it.