Losing the whip: who are the 18 UK MPs sitting as independents?

These include the former Tory MPs Scott Benton and Peter Bone, both of whom quit the Commons in recent months after parliamentary investigations found they had breached misconduct rules.

Photograph: Zoe Norfolk/Getty Images The veteran Conservative MP Crispin Blunt was suspended by his party in October after being arrested on suspicion of rape and the possession of controlled substances.

Photograph: Tom Wall/The Observer Geraint Davies, the MP for Swansea West, was suspended from the whip in June 2023 after a report in Politico documented a series of allegations of sexual harassment against him.

Photograph: Paul Campbell/PA Angus MacNeil was one of the SNP’s longest-serving MPs, but was suspended and eventually expelled last summer after a row with the party’s chief whip over missing votes in the Commons.

Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA Bob Stewart, the MP for Beckenham, surrendered the Tory whip in November while he appealed against a conviction for a racially aggravated public order offence.

William Wragg voluntarily relinquished the Tory whip earlier this month after confessing to handing over colleagues’ personal phone numbers to someone he met on a dating app.