Guilty MPs Paterson and Webbe + Councillors Too: It's No Wonder They Don't Want Criminal Records Checks For All Candidates!

Labour, Lib Dem, Green or Tory
SAME OLD STORY

On the same day as each other, Tory MP Owen Paterson quits! Labour MP Claudia Webbe sentenced! Labour or Tory, same old story! We've told you so many times!

It's no wonder Labour and Tory MPs, who make up the vast majority of MPs, haven't changed the law to make sure MP and councillor candidates have to have independent criminal records checks before they can stand for election! It might stop dodgy MPs getting elected!

Guilty Tory MP Owen Paterson

After yesterday's shameful vote by Tory MPs to ignore his censure by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Committee, North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson and his Tory Party now seem to want to avoid the facts being publicised over a prolonged period. So he has resigned.

Paterson was found by Standards to have done "paid advocacy", abusing his position as an MP. The Report says that Paterson committed paid advocacy and did declare his interests (see below* for quotes). Paterson was due to be suspended for 30 days, but Tory MPs tried to block it by voting by 250-232 by ignoring the committee and forming one full of Tories! Somerset MPs including David Warburton, Marcus Fysh and Rebecca Pow backed this shameful plan from Tory MP Andrea Leadsom to excuse Paterson.

The next day, after shameful headlines about Paterson, we now learn Paterson has quit.

Guilty Labour MP Claudia Webbe

This news comes on the same day that Labour's Claudia Webbe was sentenced.

"Claudia Webbe, Leicester East MP since 2019, was handed a suspended 10-week jail sentence, and 200 hours of community service at Westminster Magistrates' Court." (see ** below for her crimes)

Both MPs could face a recall petition, triggering a by-election. But Paterson has quit, avoiding further humiliation at the hands of North Shropshire's residents.

Webbe is appealing her sentence, meaning that a recall petition has to wait for now. 

Add this to the prominent Lib Dem and Tory councillors in Somerset, Devon and Wiltshire found guilty of crimes, or on trial for crimes, (see our Pallister, Greenslade, Seed article here). 

It is no wonder then that the Labour Party and the Conservative Party do not want their candidates to have to pass a criminal records checks before becoming a candidate for councillor, Police and Crime Commissioner or Member of Parliament.

How do we know this? Because we wrote to all 250+ district and county councillors in Somerset, asking them to back our campaign for DBS checks.

A few councillors weakly said they supported the campaign, but none of them did anything to help bring it about. Some of them even suggested that the parties should do the checks, not the returning officers for the elections. Unbelievable! Of course then, the candidates and their parties could hide their criminal records from the voters.

And after a battle where Somerset's councils and councillors tried to ignore us and block us, we at Somerset Independents exposed Lib Dem, Tory, former Tory, Green and fake independent councillors for persistently failing to pay their council tax.

Now (some of) our investigation on councillors in arrears on council tax is in the 60th Anniversary Edition of Private Eye Magazine and local newspaper The Leveller.

Private Eye "Rotten Boroughs"

 

The Leveller

We will continue our campaign for DBS checks for all councillor, MP and PCC candidates.

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*The Report said of Paterson:

"Paid advocacy

8.The Commissioner found that Mr Paterson had breached the rule prohibiting paid advocacy, set out in paragraph 11 of the 2015 Code of Conduct for Members, in making three approaches to the Food Standards Agency relating to Randox and the testing of antibiotics in milk in November 2016 and November 2017; in making seven approaches to the Food Standards Agency relating to Lynn’s Country Foods in November 2017, January 2018 and July 2018; and in making four approaches to Ministers at the Department for International Development relating to Randox and blood testing technology in October 2016 and January 2017.

Declaration of interests

9.The Commissioner found that Mr Paterson had breached paragraph 13 of the 2015 Code of Conduct, on declarations of interest, by failing to declare his interest as a paid consultant to Lynn’s Country Foods in four emails to officials at the Food Standards Agency on 16 November 2016, 15 November 2017, 8 January 2018 and 17 January 2018."

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** Webbe's sentence comes..."

"after a campaign of harassment of Michelle Merritt, a long-term friend of her boyfriend, Lester Thomas, who said she needed therapy after her ordeal.

Webbe, 56, was convicted last month after the court heard she also threatened to leak naked images of Ms Merritt and made a string of phone calls in which she warned her to “get out of my relationship” some 11 times."