The vice chair of the Conservative Party, Nicki Aiken, says that Matt Hancock should not be reinstated to his role as a Tory MP after appearing on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here.
Speaking to the BBC, Ms Aiken added: ‘Having seen what he’s done in the jungle, he’s maybe thinking about not coming back after the next election.’
During her stint on the BBC’s Politics Live, Ms Aiken answered ‘no’ to whether Mr Hancock should be allowed to return to the Conservative Party.
Furthermore, when asked if Mr Hancock should run as an MP again, she said: ‘We’ve all been asked to tell central office by Monday whether we want to stand again, and I don’t know what Matt has decided to do.’
‘Not hard and fast’
Conservative MPs have been asked to confirm whether or not they plan to run at the next election, with a deadline of 5 December this year.
See also: When Is The I’m A Celebrity Coming Out Show 2022?
As he is suspended, Mr Hancock will sit in Parliament as an independent MP – meaning that he won’t be able to declare if he wants to run again as a Conservative.
However, the BBC says that a Conservative source told them that the deadline is not ‘hard and fast’, so it isn’t impossible for Mr Hancock to re-run as a Tory MP if he chooses to do so.
‘Very disappointed’
In a similar turn of events, Nadine Dorries was suspended from the Tory party in 2012 when she too chose to go on I’m A Celebrity but, within six months, she had the whip restored and went on to hold some very important roles in under former PM Boris Johnson.
The current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has said that Mr Hancock’s decision to go on the show left him ‘very disappointed by the move.’
Mr Hancock, the former Health Secretary, has defended the decision, stating that his intentions were to ‘show what I am like as a person.’
His decision has angered people who remember all too well the bleakest moments of the Covid pandemic and Hancock’s role government policies. And many feel that Matt Hancock should never be reinstated.
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