Mike Amesbury quits as MP triggering crunch by-election for Keir Starmer

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Mike Amesbury is quitting as an MP in a move which will see Sir Keir Starmer face off with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in his first by-election as prime minister.

The suspended Labour MP was last month given a 10-week suspended prison sentence for drunkenly punching a constituent in the street.

And, in an interview with the BBC, Mr Amesbury said he is going to step down from parliament “as quickly as possible”.

“I’m going to step aside at the earliest opportunity,” he said. Mr Amesbury added: “I’ve got processes I must go through – there’s a statutory process in terms of redundancies.”

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Defending his decision to continue taking his MP salary while behind bars, Mr Amesbury said he “actually picked up some casework in prison”, adding that his office manager forwarded on “correspondence”.

“Life doesn’t stop as an MP,” he said. He spent three nights in jail after pleading guilty earlier this year to assaulting 45-year-old Paul Fellows, but was released after successfully appealing the sentence.

The decision sets up a difficult by-election in Runcorn and Helsby for Sir Keir, with Labour’s poll ratings having plunged amid a slew of “difficult decisions” by the PM since the general election.

The north west seat will be a prime target for Mr Farage’s Reform, with pollsters already saying it is the insurgent right-wing party’s to lose, having surged in the polls since the general election. But, in a reprieve for Labour, it comes amid a damaging bout of infighting between Reform leader Mr Farage and Rupert Lowe, one of five MPs elected for the party who has now been suspended.

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Mr Amesbury said he would have fought to stay on as an MP had he been given a lighter community sentence, but said he believed he had been “punished accordingly” for the drunken incident.

More follows on this breaking story…