2016 Witney by-election 2016 Witney by-election The Witney by-election was a UK parliamentary by-election held on 20 October 2016 in the constituency of Witney in Oxfordshire. It took place on the same day as the Batley and Spen by-election. They were the fifth and sixth by-elections of the 56th UK Parliament. The by-election was triggered by the resignation of the sitting Member of Parliament (MP) David Cameron on 12 September 2016. The election was won by Conservative Robert Courts with a reduced majority, and the Liberal Democrats came in second with an increase in vote share of 23.4 percentage points. David Cameron had
David Cameron Europe. ... I can't understand his tactics. Merkel and Sarkozy will never accept his Euroscepticism." Similarly, Cameron's initial "A-List" of prospective parliamentary candidates was attacked by members of his party, and the policy was discontinued in favour of sex-balanced final shortlists. Before being discontinued, the policy had been criticised by senior Conservative MP and former Prisons Spokeswoman Ann Widdecombe as an "insult to women", and she had accused Cameron of "storing up huge problems for the future." In April 2009, "The Independent" reported that in 1989, while Nelson Mandela remained imprisoned under the apartheid regime, David Cameron had accepted a