Khan was already sitting as an independent MP after the suspension of the conservative whip before his trial and may be able to continue in the role for some time, while he will appeal against the verdict. Janes Solicitors, the company representing Khan, said in a statement: “Our client Imran Ahmad Khan MP maintains his innocence and will appeal as soon as possible.” A few hours after Khan was found guilty of sexually assaulting the boy, who was attacked in jeans at a party in 2008, a Conservative spokesman said: “Mr Khan was expelled from the Conservative Party with immediate effect.” According to the rules of recall of MPs introduced after the spending scandal, any MP who is sentenced to more than 12 months in prison is automatically excluded. If an MP is sentenced to a shorter prison sentence, he or she can be removed if a revocation request that is open for six weeks is signed by at least 10% of the registered voters in the constituency. A revocation is also triggered if a Member is suspended for at least 10 days of a Commons meeting or 14 days in total by the selected Standards Committee or if convicted of false or misleading spending claims, regardless of the penalty. However, court proceedings are only activated after all appeals have been exhausted, which can take some time. The recalled Member of Parliament may be a candidate again. In March 2019, then-Conservative MP Chris Davis pleaded guilty to two counts under Article 10 of the 2009 Parliamentary Standards Act. The recall was successful, with 19% of voters signing the petition. Davis was chosen as the Conservative candidate for the next by-elections in July 2019, which he lost. In November last year, Labor MP Claudia Webbe was sentenced to a 10-week suspended sentence after being found guilty of harassing a woman, but she appealed and remains independent. Another former Conservative MP, Bob Roberts, is sitting as an independent after refusing to resign despite being out of the Commons for six weeks last May for repeated and unwanted sexual assaults on a former staff member, as well as inappropriate comments by a While his suspension was longer than the threshold for a revocation request, Roberts avoided it by appealing against the standards commissioner’s original verdict. This means that his case was judged by a separate body, an independent panel of experts, whose punishment was not covered by the revocation legislation. The rules have changed since then, so that any MP found to have been intimidated or harassed, offenses covered by the independent panel of experts, will automatically be asked to withdraw. However, the change was not retroactive, meaning that Roberts remains an MP. If Khan ousted, he would provoke a tough election at his Wakefield headquarters, in which Khan was elected in 2019 as the first Tory MP since 1932.
