Ian Paisley six-week recall petition closes

Ian Paisley failed to declare two luxury holidays paid for by the Sri Lankan government

A petition that could unseat the North Antrim MP, Ian Paisley, and force a by-election, has now closed.

It was triggered after Mr Paisley was suspended from Westminster for failing to declare two holidays paid for by the Sri Lankan government and then lobbying on its behalf.

The DUP suspended him "pending further investigation into his conduct".

A Sinn Féin MLA said that the Electoral Office advised him to delete a social media post concerning the petition.

After Phillip McGuigan posted a video on Twitter on Tuesday, he said he was contacted by the Chief Electoral Officer warning him the police could be asked to investigate the post urging people to sign the petition.

'Bizarre'

"Given that the request was made, I complied," Mr McGuigan said.

"But I still find it bizarre that the Electoral Office is focusing on social media posts when their handling of the entire petition process has been so poor."

Mr McGuigan added that he did not believe that there was anything in his post that predicted the outcome of the petition.

The Chief Electoral Officer, Virginia McVea, told the BBC that she telephoned Mr McGuigan to advise him to remove the post after receiving complaints and advised him that any decision to prosecute would be a matter for the PSNI.

The recall petition, the first in UK parliamentary history, has been open for six weeks at three centres.

The petition was open for signing for six weeks from 8 August to 19 September

The Recall of MPs Bill became law in 2015 under the coalition government.

• This is a personal embarrassment says Paisley

• Profile: Ian Paisley

• Who are the DUP?

• Timeline of events

Mr Paisley has apologised for his behaviour.

Key points from the Standards Committee's findings

• Mr Paisley went on three luxury holidays to Sri Lanka at the expense of the Sri Lankan government in 2013.

• The committee found the cost "much higher" than the £50,000 Mr Paisley estimated.

• In 2014, Mr Paisley wrote to the prime minister to lobby against supporting a UN resolution on Sri Lanka over alleged human rights abuses.

• By failing to declare his trip, Mr Paisley "breached the rule against paid advocacy, the committee said.

• The committee acknowledged that there was "inconsistent guidance" in relation to registering such trips, but it did not "exonerate Mr Paisley from breaching the advocacy rule".

This is one of the longest bans ever to be handed down at Westminster.

According to the House of Commons library, it is the longest suspension since 1949 which is as far as online records go.

Speaker of the House John Bercow will be the first to be notified before the result is posted online.

If the number of signatures reaches 7,543, 10% of North Antrim constituents, Mr Paisley will lose his seat.

Analysis: Mark Devenport, BBC News NI Political Editor

Over the past six weeks, Ian Paisley's opponents, including Sinn Féin, have been trying to get people to sign the petition.

The target is 7,543 signatures which would represent 10% of the overall North Antrim electorate.

If you look at the 2017 election, although Ian Paisley himself got 28,000 votes, there were 20,000 votes spread among the other parties.

On the face of it, you would think they would quite easily get to that 7,500 total. But this is different.

At that stage, there were 49 different places where you could go and vote, in this petition there are only three places.

If I were to give an educated guess of the result, I could be breaking the law as it is against the regulations to forecast how things will go.

Mr Paisley has insisted he will fight any by-election if he is forced to stand down.

If the number is not reached then he will continue in the seat his family has held for almost 50 years.