Will jailbird MP return to Commons with electronic tag?

IT is 11 days since Labour MP Fiona Onasanya was jailed for three months for perverting the course of justice.

Eleven days have passed without a word of contrition from her or the grace to concede that she must relinquish her job as Peterborough’s MP.

This impasse is the result of her own disgraceful obduracy — but also because of pathetically lax parliamentary rules which stipulate that an MP only loses their seat automatically if they are imprisoned for 12 months or more. And so a shameless Onasanya is allowed to keep pocketing her £77,000 salary while her 71,000 constituents are not represented properly.

To make matters worse, I am reliably informed that the solicitor is likely to be freed from prison after serving just 28 days, under an early release scheme.

Onasanya would then be required to wear an electronic tag and obey a curfew. But there would be nothing — apart from common decency — to stop her returning to the Commons.