Jessica Parker, who covers the politics on the Isle of Wight for the BBC, Tweeted a statement earlier today that she had received from Nigel Farage commenting on Andrew Turner’s expenses.
“Andrew Turner needs to come clean with the Isle of Wight. He has shown that he wants to do the decent thing by voting in the House for recall, so now he should do the decent thing and ask permission from the Islanders to continue as their MP after these appalling revelations.”
The significance
The full significance of this might not be immediately obvious.
It refers back to Andrew Turner’s voting record, where he voted in favour of Zac Goldsmith’s Recall Bill.
The Recall Bill wanted constituents to force their local MP to have to run a by-election if a percentage of the population of that area requested them to do so.
For example, if the area thought the MP had behaved incorrectly, they should form a petition and if the right number of people signed it, then the MP would be obliged to stand down and call a by-election, asking the people to show their support.
UKIP is using Andrew Turner’s own voting record to say – ‘You voted for it, so you should practice it.’
£100,000+ claim
This all refers back to the £100,000+ pounds that Andrew Turner claimed that came to light in the MP’s Expenses scandal.
It’s been alleged that Andrew Turner was wrong to do this. Calls have been made for him to return the money and the official UKIP candidate, Iain McKie, called for a by-election.
So far, Andrew Turner’s reaction has only been to issue a statement and then refuse to answer any further questions about the matter – most unusual behaviour for an MP who pumps out press releases on a weekly basis.
The complaint
The official complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards (PCS) at the House of Commons details how Andrew spent more time at his Newport house than his London flat.
The problem with that is that the MP told the House of Commons that his main home was in London. Him stating this allowed Andrew to claim over £100,000 in mortgage and other expenses for his Newport house.
PCS said that the complaint couldn’t be upheld as the paperwork of Andrew Turner’s expenses had been destroyed by shredding them.
“UKIP won’t have him!”
In a follow up Tweet, the BBC’s Jessica Parker linked this to the question of whether Andrew Turner is thinking to jumping to UKIP for the 2015 General Election.
Calls for @TheIslandsMP to "come clean" over expenses from @Nigel_Farage will end Andrew Turner defection rumours – UKIP won't have him!
— Jessica Parker (@MarkerJParker) November 23, 2014
Article edit 15.11
Replaced reference to IPSA with Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards (PCS).
Image: Euro Realist Newsletter under CC BY 2.0
