The Conservative party has finally dropped the two candidates who are under investigation for allegedly placing suspicious bets about the date of the election, after previously standing by them.
In a major U-turn, the party said it could no longer support the candidacy of Craig Williams, a parliamentary private secretary to Rishi Sunak standing in Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, and Laura Saunders, the candidate for Bristol North West. Saunders is married to the Conservatives’ head of campaigning, Tony Lee, who has taken a leave of absence.
The move means their campaigns will no longer be supported and they would not have the Conservative whip if they won the seats. However, the pair are believed not to have had their membership of the party suspended while the Gambling Commission inquiry is continuing.
A party spokesperson said: “As a result of ongoing internal inquiries, we have concluded that we can no longer support Craig Williams or Laura Saunders as parliamentary candidates at the forthcoming general election. We have checked with the Gambling Commission that this decision does not compromise the investigation that they are conducting, which is rightly independent and ongoing.”
The decision to drop Williams and Saunders is Sunak’s latest effort to draw a line under the gambling scandal that has dogged his election campaign for two weeks.
Last week, it was revealed that one of the prime minister’s personal Metropolitan police protection officers had been arrested and questioned over alleged bets on the timing of the general election, using information gained from their role.
The information that led to that officer’s arrest for misconduct in public office, came from a Gambling Commission inquiry into the suspicious activity around the placing of bets on the general election date.
The Met police has been passed new information by the Gambling Commission suggesting there may be other police officers who placed suspicious bets on the date of the poll.
So far, four politicians and officials in the Conservative party are alleged to have been involved in the placing the bets and are being investigated by the commission.
Now further questions have been asked about whether further Met officers have been involved in the placing of bets.
The latest information from the commission has led the Met to examine if more of its officers may have placed bets using inside information and whether the force needs to take further action.
The commission is continuing to work through data and information it has about bets placed on the election dates that may be suspicious.
The Met declined to be drawn on the number of officers involved in the new inquiries. A source said it was not clear how many officers the new information related to. The Met said: “We continue to liaise with the Gambling Commission and are assessing information they have provided.”
The Met also hit back at claims in a newspaper, believed to have come from a Conservative source, that the force had leaked details about the Gambling Commission’s inquiry into the Conservatives.
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Met senior officers are understood to be furious about what they regard as a smear to try to deflect attention away from the Conservatives’ troubles. A Met spokesperson said: “The allegations that the Met has leaked information are simply untrue.”
Another source added: “This is a poor distraction technique.”
In letter to Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, the chief executive of the commission, Andrew Rhodes, said it had asked the people it had been in contact with to treat the matter confidentially.
But Rhodes also said this confidentiality requirement “does not preclude other activity relating to the fact of an investigation taking place”.
The Gambling Commission investigation is into the use of confidential information to place bets, which could amount to cheating, which is a criminal offence.
The relevant legislation is section 42 of the 2005 Gambling Act, with the punishment being a fine or a maximum of two years’ imprisonment. Under the legislation a person cheats at gambling if they do “anything for the purpose of enabling or assisting another person to cheat at gambling”.
The law also says: “It is immaterial whether a person who cheats improves his chances of winning anything, or wins anything.”
