Nadine Dorries: Former minister stands down as Tory MP

Former Conservative minister Nadine Dorries has announced she is standing down as an MP.

The former culture secretary and close ally of Boris Johnson said she was standing down "with immediate effect" after "something significant" happened to change her mind.

It means there will be a by-election in her Mid Bedfordshire constituency, where she has a majority of 24,664.

Ms Dorries had already said she would not stand at the next general election.

It came ahead of the publication of Mr Johnson's resignation honours list.

Ms Dorries had been expected to be nominated for an honour, but she was not included on the list.

Earlier on Friday, she told TalkTV: "The last thing I would want to do is cause a by-election in my constituency."

"I don't believe I will be going into the House of Lords any time soon," she said, adding that she had not been contacted by anybody in No 10 about the honours list.

However, after announcing she was standing down, she told the channel: "The House of Lords thing was on the cards and it's gone back to HOLAC [the House of Lords Appointments Commission] to be vetted."

The advisory body is responsible for vetting nominations for peerages.

Asked if she thought she should be in the House of Lords, Ms Dorries said it was "very rare" for someone from her background who was born into poverty to get a peerage.

She added that she was "slightly disappointed" but "I don't think it was to be".

Ms Dorries said "something significant did happen to change my mind" about remaining an MP, but she would not give further details.

She said she now had "other priorities", including her granddaughter and media career as a presenter on TalkTV and columnist for the Daily Mail.

The former culture secretary said she felt "relief", adding: "I think I've been carrying a degree of guilt since I stood down as secretary of state. I think I possibly, maybe I should have stood down [as an MP] then."

The prime minister's press secretary said Mr Johnson's peerage list had been handed to HOLAC unaltered "as is convention", and HOLAC then passed back its approved list.

"He [Rishi Sunak] had no involvement or input into the approved list," she added.

Born in Liverpool in 1957, Ms Dorries worked as a nurse before becoming an MP in 2005.

She is also a successful author of romantic historical novels and hit the headlines in 2012 for taking part in ITV reality show I'm A Celebrity, which led to her suspension from the Conservative parliamentary party for six months.

She was a vocal critic of then-Prime Minister David Cameron and his Chancellor George Osborne, once describing them as "a pair of posh boys who don't know the price of a pint of milk".

When Mr Johnson entered Downing Street he made her a health minister before appointing her as culture secretary in September 2021.

She left government last September when Mr Johnson stepped down as prime minister.

Since then she has been a strong critic of current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and has hit out at those who sought to oust Mr Johnson.

Announcing that she would not stand in the general election in February, she criticised "the lack of cohesion, the infighting and occasionally the sheer stupidity from those who think we could remove a sitting prime minister".

"I'm afraid it's this behaviour that I now just have to remove myself from," she added.