In February 2019, Davies was charged with claiming false expenses, pursuant to the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009.[5] He pleaded guilty in March[6][7] and, in April, was sentenced to a community order of 50 hours unpaid work and a £1,500 fine.[8] Under the Recall of MPs Act 2015, this conviction triggered a recall petition.[9] After receiving notice from the sentencing court, the Speaker of the House of Commons indicated on 24 April 2019 that he would be instructing the constituency's petition officer to begin the recall process.[8] The petition opened on 9 May and remained open for signatures until 20 June 2019.[9] It required 5,303 signatures (10% of eligible voters) to be successful.[10][11] The Conservative Party were officially registered as campaigners for the petition's failure,[12] while the Liberal Democrats, Labour and Plaid Cymru campaigned for its success.[13][14][15]
This petition was successful, receiving 10,005 signatures (19%), significantly in excess of the 10% of constituents required.[16] Davies was removed from the seat,[17] creating a vacancy to be filled at a by-election, in which he was permitted to stand.
The by-election was administered by Powys County Council. The deadline for candidate nominations was 5 July, by which time a total of six candidates had registered.[21]
Dodds, the Liberal Democrat candidate, was also supported by Plaid Cymru, the Greens, Change UK and the Renew Party. Plaid Cymru first indicated that it might not stand a candidate in order to support another party supporting a second referendum on Brexit.[3] Change UK called for an independent joint Remain candidate in a letter to the Liberal Democrats, Plaid and the Greens.[26] Plaid and Change UK subsequently confirmed that they were in talks with other Remain-supporting parties.[27] Plaid Cymru decided not to put up a candidate, and instead to support Dodds.[28] The Green Party also chose not to stand a candidate, in order to "maximise the chances of the candidate most likely to beat the Conservatives and the Brexit Party."[29] The Renew Party likewise chose not to stand a candidate for the same reason.[30]
Shortly after the result of the recall petition was announced, bookmakers made the Liberal Democrats odds-on favourites to win.[3] In the final week before the election, Heidi Allen MP, former leader of Change UK and now sitting with The Independents, came to the constituency to campaign for Dodds.[31] The new Liberal Democrat leader, Jo Swinson, visited the constituency four times, but the New Statesman noted that The Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage had not, and described the party's campaign infrastructure as "threadbare".[32]
Days before the election, BBC Cymru Wales reported that, in May 2019, the Conservative Party's Brecon and Radnorshire chairman, Peter Weavers, had discussed a pro-Brexit pact with Nathan Gill, a Welsh Brexit Party MEP. Gill dismissed the idea due to Davies' support for the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated by Theresa May's government. Weavers denied the claim.[33]
Opinion polling
Only one poll was conducted, with fieldwork taking place from 10 to 18 July. The poll was completed before Johnson and Swinson were elected as leaders of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats respectively. Commenting on the paucity of polling, Britain Elects noted: "Constituency opinion polling isn’t tried much in the UK these days; it’s difficult to get a sample with such a small electorate, and when it was tried on a large scale in advance of the 2015 election it fell victim to the same polling failures that beset that election."[34]
The result was announced at around 2:20 a.m. on 2 August.[39] In her victory speech, Jane Dodds said she would urge Prime Minister Boris Johnson to "stop playing with the future of our communities and rule out a no-deal Brexit".[40] By failing to secure at least 5% of the votes cast, both the Official Monster Raving Loony Party (1.05%) and the UK Independence Party (0.76%) forfeited their deposits.[41][37] The 59.6% turnout figure was the highest recorded in a Westminster by-election since Winchester in 1997.[37]
The Liberal Democrat majority was smaller than the number of votes polled by the Brexit Party, leading many commentators to suggest that vote splitting between the Conservatives and the Brexit Party was a significant threat to the party.[42][43] The Brexit Party did however underperform relative to polls (although they got nearly twice as many votes as the Labour Party and came a clear third), with the BBC suggesting that the appointment of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister had helped the Conservatives win back some Brexit Party supporters.[43] Meanwhile, the narrow win for the Lib Dems bolstered support for a "Remain Alliance",[43] but the largest increase in Lib Dem votes appeared to come from those who voted Labour in 2017. The Guardian noted that although Labour had prioritised beating the Conservatives over winning the seat themselves, Labour's result was still "at the lower end of what was credible".[42] The extremely small vote share for UKIP was reported as an embarrassment for the party, and their failure to beat even the Official Monster Raving Loony Party was compared to the May 1990 Bootle election in which David Owen's continuing Social Democratic Party received fewer votes than the Loonys and collapsed shortly after.[44][45]
^Calculations of the government's majority vary slightly. This value considers Charlie Elphicke, who had the Conservative whip withdrawn on 22 July 2019, to be an opposition MP
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