This afternoon Mike Amesbury was sentenced to ten weeks in prison. The ex-Labour MP for Runcorn and Helsby was handed a custodial sentence at Chester Magistrates’ Court for assaulting a man in his constituency last October. Deputy Chief Magistrate Tan Ikram said the immediate custodial sentence was ‘necessary both as a punishment and a deterrent’.
The sentence means a recall petition will be triggered in Runcorn and Helsby, unless Amesbury chooses to appeal.A recall petition means voters in the MP’s seat have six weeks to sign requesting a by-election; if 10 per cent sign the by-election goes ahead, but if the threshold is not met, the MP can stay in place. Amesbury, who lost the Labour whip after footage of the incident went viral, is expected to release a statement soon. If he resigns, it would also trigger a by-election.
This seat is one which Keir Starmer’s party won comfortably at the last election: indeed it was the 16th safest Labour seat in the country. Amesbury took it with 52.9 per cent of the vote last July while Reform finished second with 18.1 per cent. Nigel Farage’s party are keen to produce a good showing here. Members were out canvassing from the weekend after the incident happened in October and subsequently won a nearby local by-election in St Helens by a landslide in December.
‘It’s a top 20 Labour seat,’ argues one senior Reform insider. ‘It’s a chance to see how good their ground game really is.’ For much of the 2010s, Labour’s by-election machine tended to underperform their national polling. Given current polling and the circumstances of Amesbury’s conviction, it is no wonder Reform are now fancying their chances here.
The writ for a by-election needs to be moved within three months, meaning a contest could be held to coincide with the local elections on Thursday 2 May. Reform were initially outraged by the cancellation of contests in parts of the country where they have been polling strongly like Thurrock in Essex. But the spectre of a shock triumph in Cheshire means Farage’s grinning face will likely still be the face on newspapers the following day.
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