Any British Labour MP found to have made improper expenses claims could be automatically deselected and barred from standing at the next general election as the party tries to overcome the crisis facing parliament.
The radical proposal is expected to be agreed to next week by Labour’s national executive, a move that acknowledges the deep sense of anger among voters to the escalating scandal over MPs’ claims.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also given ministers a deadline of tomorrow night to ensure that their expenses claims for the past five years are lodged with the parliamentary authorities and ready for publication.
Any deselection would happen after the parliamentary commissioner for standards had ruled that an MP had been found clearly guilty of improper claims.
The prime minister, who is expected to give a major TV interview today, is to resist an even more punitive grassroots proposal that would compel every sitting Labour MP to go though a fresh selection process so the public can be reassured all candidates are “fit and proper persons” to stand at the election. Labour officials met on Friday and said the move would be unfair.
Scotland Yard and the Crown Prosecution Service announced they were setting up a joint panel to consider multiple allegations that MPs have broken the law. The police said they were acting because they had received so many complaints from the public.
Lord Foulkes, a close friend of the Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, gave a broad hint that Martin has decided to stand down.
Shahid Malik, the justice minister and the first Muslim minister in the government, was forced to stand down from his post by Brown pending an investigation into whether his rental of a home in his Dewsbury constituency represented a breach of the ministerial code. He is the first minister to be disciplined since the allegations started.
William Hague, the opposition Conservative party deputy leader, announced that he was going to divest himself of the vast bulk of his outside interests, a decision that will put pressure on the other shadow cabinet members
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, struggling to keep ahead of the allegations of sleaze, told his Scottish Tory party that this was a time of “great danger” for democracy in the UK. He told delegates he understood “how deep the damage goes” and said: “Our politics is reviled. Our parliament is held in scorn. Our people have had enough.”
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