What happens if a political party candidate has their party’s support withdrawn after an election nomination deadline has passed?

With interest in what happens when a political party withdraws support for a Parliamentary candidate once the nomination deadline has passed, we thought it would be helpful to share the following general information.

As our members know, this scenario is not uncommon at local election level. In which case the following information remains the same, but substituting “councillor” and “Council” for “MP” and “Parliament”:

When a validly nominated political party candidate has their party’s support withdrawn after an election nomination deadline has passed, there is no legal mechanism to remove their name from the ballot paper. 

If a candidate in these circumstances has opted to include a political party description and emblem on the ballot paper, by law this must also still be included.  

The bottom line is the Returning Officer has no legal powers to amend the ballot paper or stop the election. Everything must continue as planned in line with electoral law. 

No political information can be made available in polling stations. If voters ask, polling station staff may make a factual statement along the lines of: “Candidate X was validly nominated as the authorised candidate for Y party, so is included as that on the ballot paper.”  

If the candidate is elected, the result would stand. They would take office in the usual way and could either serve as an independent Member of Parliament, join a political party or resign their seat.  

If an MP changes party affiliation a by-election is not automatically triggered. If an MP chooses to resign, a by-election would be held, and if they so wished they could stand again as an independent candidate or for another political party.