Boris Johnson’s “anti-woke agenda” has helped fuel the rise in misogynistic behaviour in parliament, one of Labour’s most senior women MPs has said.
Dame Margaret Hodge’s comments came after the resignation of Tory MP Neil Parish for watching porn in the Commons chamber, and amid a flood of complaints about women at Westminster being groped, objectified and belittled because of their sex.
The MP for Barking told BBC Radio 4 the prime minister was “creating a culture where it’s OK to break the rules and we’ve got an ‘anti-woke’ culture being driven from the top”.
Mr Parish resigned after he admitted watching pornography in the House of Commons in what he described as a “moment of madness”.
The Tiverton and Honiton MP claimed he looked at adult material twice, the first time stumbling on a porn website while looking for tractors online, but returning deliberately on the second occasion.
Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has called for “radical” reform to working practices in parliament, suggesting staff should no longer be employed by the parliamentarians they work for.
