OUSTED Conservative Chris Davies has been forced to stand down just hours after becoming a general election candidate for the party in a key north Wales seat.

The former Brecon and Radnorshire MP was revealed on Tuesday evening to be the Conservative candidate for the tight three way marginal Ynys Mon seat.

But a backlash, including from Conservatives, prompted Mr Davies – who was booted out of his Brecon and Radnorshire seat over false expenses claims – to stand down just hours later from the target seat.

Mr Davies lost his Brecon and Radnorshire seat due to a recall petition but local Conservatives again put their faith in him as their candidate at the August by-election triggered by the petition.

But despite amassing 12,401 votes it wasn’t enough to keep the seat in Conservative hands with Liberal Democrat Jane Dodds pulling in 13,826 votes to take the seat.

Days before the by-election then newly installed Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Brecon to support Mr Davies and told The Brecon & Radnor Express he had no concerns about him as a candidate.

Last month Mr Davies was overlooked by local party chiefs when they met to decide which applicants would be put before party members to chose a general election candidate.

Members then chose Fay Jones as the Brecon and Radnorshire candidate but at the end of the month, once the general election had been confirmed, Mr Davies hit out at local party chiefs who he claimed had prevented his name from being put forward to local members.

Then Mr Davies, who lives in Glasbury and had always pressed his local credentials in election campaigns, appeared as a surprise name as the Conservative candidate for Ynys Mon.

Labour held the island seat at the 2017 election pulling in more than 15,000 votes with the Conservatives second with some 10,000 votes which was just over a hundred more votes than Plaid Cymru which also had more than 10,000 votes.

The situation has raised further questions over the Conservative general election campaign in Wales that has been dogged by controversy.

Alun Cairns stood down as Welsh Secretary over allegations he was aware a friend and former staff member of his had been accused by a crown court judge of "deliberately sabotaging" a rape trial while another candidate, in a Facebook posts, had called for people on benefits to be "put down".

The party also faced ridicule on social media, with Chris Davies and Ynys Mon trending on Twitter, and criticism from other parties after the news broke.

Late Tuesday night Mr Davies issued a statement confirming he would pull out of the election.

It said: "Given the reaction in the media to the idea of me being a candidate, I have decided to pull out of the selection process.

"I would not want to put my wife and family through any more distress."

Nominations for general elections candidates close tomorrow and its unclear if the Conservatives will find someone to nominate in the seat which is currently held by Labour at Westminster and Plaid Cymru in the Welsh Assembly.

Mr Davies lost his Brecon and Radnorshire seat, which he won from the Liberal Democrats in 2015, in a recall petition after he had admitted, in court, providing false information on expenses claims. He had sought to split the £700 cost of photographs for his Builth Wells constituency office, which he was entitled to claim for between two expense accounts, by creating false invoices in place of the original single invoice.

That put him in breach of the Parliamentary Standards Act and he plead guilty at a London court in March and was fined £1,500 and told to carry out unpaid community work.

After more than 10,000 local electors triggered a by-election by signing a recall petition Mr Davies was selected by the Brecon and Radnorshire Conservatives to again stand for the seat he held onto at the 2017 general election with a record 8,000 majority.

But that fell away at the August 1 by-election when the seat was taken by the Liberal Democrats with a 1,425 majority.

Both Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems had criticised the decision to put Mr Davies forward as a general election candidate.

Plaid candidate Aled ap Dafydd said: "This is unbelievable from the Tories. By imposing a convicted former MP who was found guilty of a false expenses claim as the candidate for the island shows how little they care about Ynys Mon. This makes a mockery of the people of the island.

"The people of Ynys Mon deserve an honest MP who will work hard to represent them. Only a vote for Plaid Cymru in this election will put the interest of the people of Ynys Mon and its communities first every single time."

The Lib Dems aren’t contesting Ynys Mon, to support Plaid as part of their remain pact, but Christine Humphreys deputy leader of the Welsh Lib Dems said: ""Over 10,000 people signed the recall petition and decisively rejected Chris Davies at the ballot box in August because they had enough of an MP who put their constituency on the map for all the wrong reasons.

"By selecting Chris Davies to contest Ynys Môn, the Conservatives have demonstrated their utter contempt for the voters of Ynys Môn. This shows they can offer nothing more than an MP who has admitted to providing false information about his expenses claims.

"People deserve better, better than an MP who was rejected by his constituents and has fled his former constituency to seek election somewhere else.”

Labour’s Mary Roberts will also contest the Ynys Mon seat.