Former Labour MP Dan Norris Arrested on ‘Rape and Sexual Assault’ Charges

The Norris Affair: When “Integrity” Met Labour’s Selection Machine and Dan Norris

Does power protect its own, or is the “Change” we were promised merely a cosmetic adjustment to a decaying façade?

Dan Norris’s case raises questions about the integrity of the political system.

In July 2024, the voters of North East Somerset and Hanham were told they were participating in a moral exorcism. By unseating the caricature of Victorian paternalism that was Jacob Rees-Mogg, they were ostensibly ushering in a new era of integrity, vetting, and professionalised governance.

Out would go Mogg. In would come Dan Norris, vetted and approved by a Labour Party that promised professionalism and accountability.

Today, that promise lies in ruins. Norris has been arrested for a second time, now facing allegations of raping two women, sexually assaulting a third, and voyeurism and upskirting against multiple women. The offences allegedly span from the 2000s through the 2020s. Police are also investigating misconduct in public office.

This is not a case of new allegations emerging after an election. The police investigation began in December 2024, months before voters went to the polls. By the time Labour selected Norris to challenge Rees-Mogg, warning signs were everywhere.

In October 2023, a staff survey at the West of England Combined Authority, where Norris served as mayor, documented accusations of bullying and harassment. Staff reported needing “protection from the mayor” and cited “unprecedented levels of turnover” in some teams. In March 2024, a Best Value Notice warned of the “poor state of professional relationships” between Norris and other authority members.

Yet two months later, Labour announced Norris would run against Rees-Mogg. Keir Starmer himself travelled to Bath to campaign alongside him.

According to The Telegraph, Starmer had been warned before the election that Norris faced legal action for bullying and harassment. A formal complaint had been made to Labour’s dispute team. Their response? No investigation was possible due to “extant legal proceedings.”

This is the party machinery that promised to restore trust in politics. This is the vetting process that was supposed to prevent exactly these failures.

The timeline alone is damning. Norris served as a junior minister under Gordon Brown and as an assistant whip under Tony Blair from 2001 to 2003. He was MP for Wansdyke from 1997 to 2010. Police are investigating allegations stretching back to the 2000s. How did a man with alleged offences spanning two decades, multiple roles in government, and documented workplace complaints pass Labour’s candidate selection?

The answer reveals something darker than incompetence. It suggests a selection system that prioritises electability over scrutiny, that treats legal obstacles as procedural inconveniences rather than red flags, and that believes high-profile scalps like Rees-Mogg’s justify overlooking institutional warnings.

Norris is not alone in this pattern. Labour’s right wing has produced a steady stream of sexual misconduct allegations. Ivor Caplin, former chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, was arrested in January 2025 on child sex offence suspicions. Neil Coyle was found by Labour to have sexually harassed a young woman, but was welcomed back by Starmer.

This is not random. This is systemic. When institutional protections fail repeatedly in the same direction, it stops being coincidence and becomes culture.

The voters of North East Somerset and Hanham were promised a moral upgrade. They got an MP now sitting as an independent, banned from the Parliamentary Estate, voting by proxy while under investigation for rape, sexual assault, voyeurism, and misconduct in public office.

Starmer promised to rebuild trust in politics. Instead, his party’s selection machinery delivered a representative who allegedly spent decades engaged in the very conduct that destroys that trust. The child sexual offences and abduction allegations Norris was accused of may no longer be under investigation, but the expanding scope of the remaining charges, the pattern of workplace abuse, and the institutional failures that enabled his candidacy demand answers.

Labour knew enough to be worried. They chose electability instead. That choice now sits in the dock alongside Norris himself.

When vetting becomes a procedural box-tick rather than a moral safeguard, the machinery doesn’t just fail. It becomes complicit.

Paul Knaggs

Editor & founder of Labour Heartlands. 𝙁𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙣 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙍𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙎𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩. Citizen journalist and veteran writing from the working-class coalface challenging the corruption, liberal elitism, and political complacency that dominate Britain today. Dyslexic but driven… I write because silence serves the powerful. Defender of free speech, civil liberties, and real democracy. Committed to an open, accountable democracy, not the manufactured version handed down from party machines, think tanks, or the Westminster bubble.