Paul Nuttall's Stoke byelection papers gave address he had not moved into
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Version 0 of 1. Nomination papers submitted by the Ukip leader contesting the Stoke Central byelection declared he was living in a house in the city that he had not yet moved into at the time they were filed. Paul Nuttall’s papers for the 23 February byelection, nominations for which closed on Tuesday, gave his home address as an end-of-terrace house near the city centre. However, when Channel 4 News’s Michael Crick went to the house on Wednesday morning, it appeared empty. The Electoral Commission’s guidance for candidates says those standing in Westminster elections must give their current home address on their nomination papers; this cannot be just a business address. It is an offence under the Representation of the People Act 1983 to knowingly provide false information on a nomination paper, with potential penalties being a fine or up to 51 weeks in jail. A spokesman for Nuttall said the Ukip leader, who is marginally ahead of Labour as the bookmakers’ favourite to take the strongly pro-leave seat, was in the process of moving into the house and would spend his first night there on Wednesday. The party had taken a lease on the house more than a week before, the spokesman said, and Nuttall would base himself there throughout the campaign. If he won he would live in Stoke permanently, he added, if not necessarily at that address. If Nuttall was to win the battle to replace Labour’s Tristram Hunt at Westminster, the result could be challenged or even reversed afterwards because of the claim, election officials say. One lawyer said there were potentially ways to challenge his candidacy before the vote. Peter Stanyon, deputy chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, said the address had to be the home address at the moment of nomination. “The general provision will clearly be that it needs to be a factual statement made at the point the nomination was being submitted,” he said. The challenge could come in the form of an election petition, filed by an “interested party” such as another candidate or electors, within 21 days of the election. If successful, the result could be annulled. “It could be held as a technical breach of the law, but did it have an effect on the actual election itself, since the individual did subsequently move into that address,” Stanyon said. However, he added, to prove an effect on the election was “quite a high bar”, and it would probably need both a very small margin of victory and voters who could say Nuttall moving into the house a few days later than he said made a difference to their decision. Nuttall’s candidacy for the seat has raised the stakes in the byelection, making it a key test of his stated intention to take seats from Labour in pro-Brexit areas. Hunt, who has quit parliament to head the Victoria & Albert museum, had a majority in 2015 of just over 5,000, but on a very small turnout of less than 50%. Ukip came second, marginally ahead of the Conservatives. |