The Conservative British government has once again been shaken by a sex scandal: The Tory Party’s deputy parliamentary secretary, Chris Pincher, has submitted his resignation over sexual harassment. According to British media reports, the 52-year-old sexually harassed two men, including a member of parliament, in a London private club. They then complained to the conservative party leadership.
In his resignation letter, released Thursday night, Pincher said he “drank far too much” during the incident the night before. He apologized for “embarrassing” himself and others. A spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is already under heavy pressure over a series of scandals, said the Prime Minister had accepted the resignation and “thinks he was right to resign”. Such behavior is “unacceptable”. Johnson would support a complaint from those affected.
While Pincher is stepping down as deputy parliamentary secretary, he intends to remain an MP. The opposition reacted with outrage: “It is out of the question for the Conservatives to sweep potential sexual abuse under the rug,” wrote Labor Party Vice-President Angela Rayner on Twitter. Johnson must explain why Pincher can remain a Tory MP.
Moral standards have been “completely eroded” under Johnson’s government, and the conservative party is deep in “filth and scandals,” criticized Rayner.
The ruling party has been rocked by a string of sex scandals in recent months. In mid-May, a member of parliament was temporarily arrested on suspicion of rape. Also in May, a former Tory MP was sentenced to a year and a half in prison for sexually abusing a minor. At the end of April, a member of parliament resigned after watching porn videos on his mobile phone in parliament.
