Rejected petition MPs that defect to another party should trigger an immediate by-election

Change the rules so that when a sitting MP defects to a different party, a by-election is immediately triggered

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so that the electorate of the relevant constituency get a chance to be represented in parliament by an MP that represents them and the manifesto the majority initially voted for.
The votes should not follow the MP, as by definition of defection, the MP no longer represents the voters that put the MP in parliament, and the only way to check this is to have a by-election

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.

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You may wish to sign the following petition, which calls for similar 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 27 January 2026
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