Boris Johnson has succumbed to pressure and suspended former parliamentary party deputy chief Chris Pincher over a complaint that palpated two drunken men.
Mr. Pincher had already been forced to leave his role in the office of the Conservative whips, in which he was responsible for party discipline and the smooth running of government business in Westminster, after the claim arose this week. .
Now, after a formal complaint has been filed against him before Parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS), he will be forced to sit as an independent outside the Conservative group.
Politics Hub: Boris Johnson agrees to remove the Conservative MP’s whip
A spokesman for whip chief Chris Heaton-Harris said: “After learning that a formal complaint has been lodged with the ICGS, the Prime Minister has agreed with the chief chief that the whip should be suspended from Chris Pincher while the investigation is ongoing.
“We will not pre-judge this investigation. We urge colleagues and the media to respect this process.”
Former Housing Minister Kelly Tolhurst has been appointed as the Deputy Deputy Director of Conservatives.
Earlier, the official spokesman of Mr. Johnson had said the prime minister “believes it is [Mr Pincher] he did the right thing by resigning and he has accepted this resignation “.
Downing Street rejected claims that the prime minister was not taking the allegations seriously enough, as Labor and some Conservative MPs insisted the whip should be withdrawn.
A source number 10 later said that Mr. Johnson had been forced to take further action after conducting “polls” and being informed of the formal complaint.
Johnson was also under pressure to explain why he gave Pincher such a sensitive post earlier this year amid reports that he had been advised not to. The prime minister’s spokesman said it would not have been appropriate to “stop an appointment on the basis of unfounded allegations”.
Labor deputy leader Angela Rayner said the prime minister had been “dragged by kicking and shouting for him to take any action” and that the scandal was “even more proof of his horrible trial”.
Leading Liberal Democrat Wendy Chamberlain said: “Never should Boris Johnson have taken so long to act and remove the whip.
“Once again it looks like Johnson has had to be forced to do the right thing.”
Earlier, Conservative MPs Karen Bradley and Caroline Nokes – the only two Conservative women chairmen on select back committee committees – criticized what they called their party’s “inconsistent and unclear approach” to these incidents.
Read more: Prime Minister embarrassed to discipline close ally accused of throbbing
In a letter to Mr Heaton-Harris, they said the current approach runs the risk of causing “serious damage to reputation” to the party and the government and urged him to introduce a code of conduct for all Conservative MPs.
Deputies urged that, in the meantime, the party adopt a position of “zero tolerance”.
“Once an investigation is completed, a decision should be made on the return of the whip, but in the meantime no one subject to an investigation should be allowed to be a Conservative MP and represent the party in any way,” they said.
Mr Pincher, 52, resigned on Thursday from his role as deputy tap director and apologized after admitting he had drunk “too much” and “had embarrassed myself and others” on a night out.
Mr Pincher “felt two men in front of others” at the Carlton Club in the St James area of central London, a government source told Sky News.
One of the palpated is a deputy, and the second may also be a deputy, the source added.
Sky News has been told the episode has added to the number of conservatives who have lost faith in the prime minister, in addition to the 148 who issued a verdict of censure in a blunt revolt last month.
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0:54 Former Tory MP: Double moral about Pincher
Meanwhile, Neil Parish, whose resignation as MP after admitting to having seen pornography in the House of Commons caused Tiverton and Honiton Conservative Democrats to run in the by-elections, accused the party of “double standards “.
Mr Parish told Sky News that after Mr Pincher had helped organize the prime minister’s survival in a vote of censure, “the whip in the head, the prime minister and everyone else were involved in trying to save Christopher Pincher, while Neil Parish was totally dispensable. “
In the last election, Mr Pincher was returned to his seat in Tamworth with a majority of more than 19,000 and this could be vulnerable if he left office, after two recent forceful partial electoral defeats by the Conservatives.
This is the second time the deputy has left the whip office.
In November 2017, Downing Street said it had “voluntarily referred to both the party’s grievance procedure and the police.”
The Mail on Sunday reported that Mr Pincher had been accused of making an unwanted pass to conservative activist and former British rower Alex Story.
Pincher told the newspaper, “If you’ve ever been offended by Mr. Story for something I said, I can only apologize.”
Theresa May reappointed him to the whip office the following year.