Over 75,000 sign petition urging Nadine Dorries to quit parliament

Popular outrage comes after Rishi Sunak said constituents were not being properly represented

Nadine Dorries has been urged to vacate her seat (Kirsty O’Connor/PA) (PA Archive)

A petition demanding "absentee" MP Nadine Dorries quits her seat in parliament has passed 75,000 signatures.

The former culture secretary said she would quit with "immediate" effect around 10 weeks ago – but is yet to do so.

She has not spoken in parliament for over a year since Boris Johnson – her close ally – was ousted as prime minister.

Ms Dorries previously said she would follow the former PM out of parliament when she was refused a peerage in his resignation honours, but later she would wait for an explanation before resigning her seat.

Huge numbers of people have now signed a petition calling on her to quit, with over 77,000 signatures as of Thursday.

"Your constituents, local council, the Prime Minister and now the public have all had enough. Either start representing the people of Mid Bedfordshire or stand down with immediate effect, so they can have the representation they deserve," the petition on the 38 Degrees website says.

A town council in her constituency has also urged her to step down, and prime minister Rishi Sunak has said he believes her constituents are not being properly represented.

Veronica Hawking, Head of Campaigns at 38 Degrees, said: "The 75,000 signatures on our petition represent a clear message from the British public to Nadine Dorries: we're paying you for this job, and we expect you to do it."

The mounting anger comes after the standards commissioner ruled that Ms Dorries had not breached rules by failing to speak in parliament for over a year.

Campaign group Unlock Democracy had complained to the commissioner and argued that the Mid-Bedfordshire MP had breached rules by doing "significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole, or of its Members generally".

But website Byline Times reports that the Standards Commissioner has now ruled “there is no specific ‘service standard’ or exact job description for MPs, or a minimum number of hours of attendance required by the House".

“It is for each individual MP to decide for themselves how they undertake the role of MP, and the Commissioner could not investigate an MP based on their level of, or lack, of attendance," the commissioner said.