Controversial Boris Johnson loyalist, Nadine Dorries has resigned as MP for Mid Beds triggering a by-election in her constituency, which covers parts of Bedford Borough.
The outspoken MP, who claims to be a champion of free speech announced she was resigning with immediate effect in a tweet that only the people she follows can respond to.
I have today informed the chief whip that I am standing down as the MP for Mid Bedfordshire, with immediate effect.
It has been an honour to serve as the MP for such a wonderful constituency but it is now time for another to take the reins.— Rt Hon Nadine Dorries MP (@NadineDorries) June 9, 2023
It means there will be a by-election in the Mid-Bedfordshire constituency, which she has held since 2005. At the last general election in 2019, she won by a majority of 24,664.
The resignation is an apparent u-turn for Dorries who told Talk TV earlier that “The last thing I would want to do is cause a by-election in my constituency.”
She added that she had not been contacted by No 10 about former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list which has also now been released.
Since announcing she was standing down, the BBC reports she said, “The House of Lords thing was on the cards and it’s gone back to HOLAC [the House of Lords Appointments Commission] to be vetted.”
When pressed as the whether she thought she’d be entering the hours of lords, she said it was “very rare” for someone born into poverty to get a peerage and that “I don’t think it was to be”.
Mystery surrounding Dorries decision to quit
With her possible position in the House of Lords unconfirmed, Ms Dorries added that “something significant did happen to change my mind” about remaining an MP, but she would not give further details.
She said she now had “other priorities”, including her family and media positions with Talk TV and the Daily Mail.
“I think I’ve been carrying a degree of guilt since I stood down as secretary of state. I think I possibly, maybe I should have stood down then,” she said.
Ms Dorries has been a vocal critic of then Prime Minister David Cameron and his Chancellor George Osborne, once describing them as “a pair of posh boys who don’t know the price of a pint of milk”.
She was made health minister when Boris Johnson become PM and then appointed as culture secretary in September 2021.
She left the government last September when Mr Johnson stepped down as prime minister.
Since then she has been a strong critic of current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and has hit out at those who sought to oust Mr Johnson.
She had previously announced she would not stand in the general election in February and criticised “the lack of cohesion, the infighting and occasionally the sheer stupidity from those who think we could remove a sitting prime minister”.
“I’m afraid it’s this behaviour that I now just have to remove myself from,” she said at the time.
It’s thought Ms Dorries was dropped from Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list, to reportedly avoid the Conservatives facing a difficult by-election in her constituency.
Her resignation, however, means Prime Minister Sunak’s party faces that challenge anyway.
A recent string of losses in southern “Blue Wall” seats to the Liberal Democrats means opposition parties will be hoping to capture the Mid Beds constituency that has been in Conservative control since 1931.
Reacting to the resignation of Ms Dorries, Shabana Mahmood MP, Labour’s National Campaign Coordinator said: “After 13 years of failed Tory government, it’s time for a change.
“The departure of Nadine Dorries shows Rishi Sunak is too weak to lead a Tory Party that has lost interest in the people of Mid Bedfordshire. It doesn’t need to be this way.
“Labour will be campaigning to win in this by-election by listening to the voters the Tories are ignoring.”
It’s been reported that Ms Dorries said she had had “a number of conversations” with ex-PM Mr Johnson over the last 24 hours while his resignation honours were being finalised, and that “he knows exactly what I am doing”.
No details yet have been released as to when the by-election will be held.
