Rejected petition Automatically trigger a by-election following a defection to another party.

Automatically trigger a by-election following a defection to another party. This is to give constituents the opportunity to either re-elect the individual standing for their defected party, or vote for the political party they previously voted, but a different candidate following the defection.

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To ensure that politicians can’t just defect from a party that is unpopular to a party that is leading in hypothetical polls, to ensure they keep their elected seat at the next election. This is unfair to those local constituents who may have voted for the political party rather than the individual. Having a politician defect to a party that lost in a recently election isn’t democratic, nor fair for their local constituents.

This petition was rejected

Why was this petition rejected?

There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.

You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.

You may wish to sign this petition, which calls for the same action: "By-elections to be called automatically when MPs defect to another party" https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/737660

We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.

Date submitted 18 September 2025
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