LONDON – The government of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing another alcohol scandal after the deputy director resigned and was later suspended by the Conservative Party over an incident of intoxication in which, according to it is said, he palpated two men at an event.
Chris Pincher, whose job it was to maintain discipline among Conservative members of Parliament, submitted a letter of resignation to Johnson on Thursday.
“I drank too much” Wednesday night, Pincher said in the letter. “I have embarrassed myself and other people, which is the last thing I want to do, and for that I apologize to you and those concerned.”
But he said in his letter that he would continue as a Conservative legislator and continue to support Johnson from the back benches of Parliament. This sparked the fury of the opposition and even some Conservative Party lawmakers.
At first, Johnson resisted calls to suspend Pincher from the party before yielding to pressure Friday evening after a formal complaint was filed with an independent investigative body.
A Conservative Party spokeswoman said Johnson had accepted Pincher’s suspension, meaning he could not sit in Parliament among Conservative benches.
The scandal has added to the Prime Minister’s growing problems, and the main British opposition Labor Party has criticized Johnson for not suspending Pincher immediately.
“Boris Johnson has been dragged by kicking and shouting for him to take any action,” Labor MP Angela Rayner said. “He can’t be trusted to do the right thing. This whole scandal is yet another proof of his appalling judgment.”
Johnson survived a censure vote last month sparked by his own party’s lawmakers, but came out weak as more than 40 percent of Conservatives voted against.
Most of the dissatisfaction with Johnson’s leadership focused on investigations into alcohol parties held in government buildings when coronavirus blockades banned group meetings. In April, a Conservative lawmaker resigned to watch porn on his phone in the House of Commons.
After returning from the Group of Seven and NATO summits this week, Johnson wanted to leave behind these shames and the defeat of his party in two special parliamentary elections.
Conservative Party President Oliver Dowden resigned last week after the Conservatives lost both seats in the by-elections, saying the party “cannot continue its business as usual.” But Johnson has remained defiant amid calls for his own resignation and said he would not call early elections. The next general election is to be called for 2024.
British tabloid The Sun reported that Pincher palpated two men Wednesday night at a private club. London Metropolitan Police said they had not yet received any reports of assault at the event.
It was the second time Pincher, 52, had left a government whip job. In November 2017, he resigned as a junior whip after a complaint that made an unwanted pass to former Olympic rower and Conservative candidate Alex Story.
But Prime Minister Theresa May reinstated him in government in 2018 by making him deputy director. When Johnson took office in July 2019, Pincher was transferred to the Secretary of State as a junior minister before returning to the whips office.
The Labor Party said the Johnson administration had questions to answer about why Pincher took office in the first place.
“This latest episode shows the extent to which standards of public life have been degraded under the control of Boris Johnson,” said Rayner, the deputy leader of the work. “The Conservative Party is so immersed in scandal and scandal that it is totally unable to meet the challenges facing the British people.”