Why you should sign the petition

This week, the pe- tition to remove Fiona Onasanya from office has opened; it will be available to sign until May 1st. I would like to use this week’s column to urge every voter within the Peterborough constituency to sign it.

I don’t say this lightly: I thought I knew Fiona. I worked with her. I believed her to be a person of integrity: like most of us, I feel terribly let down by her behaviour.

If it was merely a matter of Fiona showing no dignity, that would be bad enough. However, it’s important to remember that democracies don’t function just by rules and laws, rather, they also demand certain behavioural norms. I am no fan of Jeffrey Archer: however, once he was convicted of perjury, at least he had the sense never to return to the House of Lords.

He knew that removing a Lord is a complicated business: it requires an Act of Parliament.

Rather than create any more inconvenience or embarrass our government further, he wisely stayed away. The norms of behaviour to which Archer adhered meant no additional action was required: he had removed himself. For whatever reason, Fiona doesn’t appear to understand this, or she doesn’t want to know.

I was very disheartened to see Fiona return to the House of Commons with an electronic tag strapped to her. It’s disquieting also that she felt entitled to vote on vital issues like Brexit; those who break the laws shouldn’t make them. My understand- ing is that she has not been participating in further votes due to medical issues; as from one human being to another, I wish her a speedy recovery.

However, she should have had at least the same amount of common sense as Jeffrey Archer; she should have possessed at least as much dignity as Chris Huhne, who resigned once he pled guilty, so that the people of Eastleigh could acquire effective representation.

Instead, the taxpayer is now expending an additional £500,000 on top of the fees for the court and her salary in order to remove her from office.

In the meantime, Fiona’s hard-pressed staff are doing their best to serve the people of Peterborough: they are victims too.

Fiona herself, however, cannot effectively represent our city any longer, nor can she lead: her moral authority is gone, and we are circling towards an inevitable conclusion. The maddening aspect of this affair is thus: as the conclusion is inevitable, she could have shown a great deal more decorum in facing into it and spared us much.

I hope that any doubts that remained about signing the petition are now dispelled; we need to move on. I hope also that this teaches everyone who has chosen politics as a calling that we need more dignity, more poise, more civility, and more understanding of the behaviour that public service demands.

If we fail to act upon these lessons, no doubt they will be visited upon us in some form again.