(CTN News) – During the final televised discussion between British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer ahead of the upcoming general election, a betting scandal involving the ruling Conservative Party grew.
On Wednesday, it was revealed that the Metropolitan Police had taken a more active role in an inquiry into bets placed by senior politicians and bureaucrats on the next general election.
During a heated debate with the prime minister over taxation, immigration, and transgender rights, Starmer criticized top Conservatives for allegedly betting on election dates before they were announced, citing the “wrong instinct” to bet on the country’s future.
Allegations that certain party officials placed wagers on the date of the election, described as political “insider trading” by one senior Conservative figure, Baroness Ruth Davidson, appear destined to haunt what may be the Conservative government’s final days after 14 stormy years in office.
“Firstly, I mean, how tawdry is it?” Davidson railed on last Friday’s Sky News Electoral Dysfunction podcast about the charges plaguing her party, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak since 2022.
Davidson, the previous leader of the Scottish Conservative Party in the devolved Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, added, “I genuinely have no words. I’ve been battling elections for over 15 years, and I have no words.”
Allegations that some Conservative candidates and officials bet on the date of Britain’s July 4 general election have grown since it was revealed two weeks ago that Craig Williams, a Rishi Sunak aide, had placed a 100-pound ($127) wager on a July vote just days before Rishi Sunak announced the date to the British public.
So far, five Conservative officials have been listed as under investigation by the Gambling Commission (GC) for allegedly betting on the July election using insider information.
The GC, the United Kingdom organization in charge of regulating gambling regulations, is thought to be investigating up to 15 Conservative Party candidates and executives for allegedly wagering on election timing.
In a separate but related incident, the Conservative Party’s Scottish Secretary, Alister Jack, admitted to putting many modest bets on the election date in March and April, but stated that he broke no regulations and was not being investigated by the GC.
What is the scandal about?
In a twist on the betting scandal, The Sun daily revealed on Wednesday that another Conservative, Philip Davies, bet 8,000 pounds ($10,115) that he would lose his marginal seat of Shipley in West Yorkshire at the next election. Davies told the Sun that he “fully expects to lose” his seat to Labour, who are expected to win, and that it was “nobody’s business” if he opted to gamble against himself.
The betting scandal has not been without consequences for the Labour Party. On Tuesday, the Party removed Kevin Craig from its candidacy after it was revealed that the GC was investigating him for betting that he would lose his own attempt to become MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich in the next election.
Williams, the first person reported under investigation by the Gambling Commission (GC), was running as the Conservative Party candidate for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr in Wales when he was investigated.
The 39-year-old admits to making a “huge error of judgement” in attempting to profit from his 100-pound bet on the election day, with odds of 5-1, implying he might have won 500 pounds ($633). He has not stated if he had inside information of the election date before placing his bet, but Ladbrokes, the betting firm with which he placed the wager, declined to record the bet after flagging him as a “politically exposed person” and referring the matter to the General Court.
Laura Saunders was the second party official to face a GC inquiry as the Conservative candidate for Bristol North West. Saunders was shortly joined by her husband, Tony Lee, the Conservative Party’s director of campaigning, who took a leave of absence after learning that he was also under investigation by the GC.
Williams and Saunders were withdrawn as candidates by their party on Tuesday, but they appear to be contesting their respective seats, implying that they will sit as independents in the House of Commons if won.
Nick Mason, the Conservative Party’s top data officer, became the fourth Conservative to come under scrutiny by the GC after it was reported that he, too, had placed a number of election bets before Rishi Sunak revealed the date of the snap election.
Russell George, a Conservative member of the devolved Welsh Parliament, was named on Tuesday evening as the fifth party figure to face an examination by the GC, despite not standing for a seat in the general election.
An anonymous police policeman from the prime minister’s security detail was arrested on June 17 after being accused of placing a similar bet. According to recent reports, the GC is also investigating five additional police officers.
Section 42 of the 2005 Gambling Act expressly prohibits gamblers from utilizing inside information (insider trading) to place a bet or providing the relevant information to another person to place a bet for them. It carries a maximum two-year prison term.
What does this mean for the Conservative Party’s Genrel election campaign?
The Parliamentary Code of Conduct advises MPs against doing anything that could “significantly damage the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons.”
Rishi Sunak noted on a special episode of BBC Question Time on June 20 that the incident is “a really serious matter – it’s right that they’re being investigated properly by the relevant law enforcement authorities”.
Rishi Sunak stated that he was “incredibly angry” over the charges. “The integrity of that process should be respected,” he told me. “But what I can tell you is, if anyone is found to have broken the rules, not only should they face the full consequences of the law, I will make sure that they are booted out of the Conservative Party.”
Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party was already lagging Labour in the polls before the betting revelations. According to a recent Savanta study for the Telegraph, this is likely to harm the party even more, with two-thirds of respondents opposing Conservative candidates betting on the election date.
Furthermore, this scandal is just the latest in a long line of controversies that have dogged Britain’s ruling Conservatives in recent years, and it reflects a party that has grown “corpulent with complacency” during its 14 years in power, according to Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London.
“As the 19th-century politician, Lord Acton, once wrote, ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,'” Bale said of the Conservative Party’s list of travails, such as “Partygate,” the scandal over parties and gatherings held at then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s official residence in Downing Street during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, which violated lockdown rules.
Bale pointed out: “Because the Labour Party provided no serious opposition to them for a decade, all too many Conservatives, having had it too easy for too long and taking their cue from the very top, got used to thinking they could, as the saying goes, get away with murder.”
He went further: “But that era of impunity was never going to last once Labour recovered its senses and voters grew tired of the government’s failure to deliver on the fundamentals.”