One of Boris Johnson’s close allies, Chris Pincher, has been suspended as a Conservative MP and will be investigated by parliament’s complaints watchdog after allegations he drunkenly groped two men.
Pincher, who resigned as deputy chief whip on Thursday, was reported to the independent complaints and grievance scheme, which looks into allegations of misconduct by MPs.
The referral prompted the chief whip, Chris Heaton-Harris, to suspend the whip from his own former deputy after almost 24 hours of pressure on Johnson to act against Pincher.
With the MP suspended, the spotlight has turned on what the prime minister knew about allegations against Pincher, who had previously resigned from the whips’ office in 2017 following claims he made unwanted passes at a Tory colleague and acted like a “pound shop Harvey Weinstein”. He was cleared of wrongdoing in a party investigation.
On Friday, the prime minister’s official spokesperson denied he had known about “specific” claims before appointing Pincher as deputy chief whip in February.
However, a No 10 source conceded Johnson “probably” knew about rumours surrounding the MP’s sexual conduct, while downplaying the seriousness of the most recent allegations as on the level of “somebody’s bum being pinched”.
The government admitted the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team had examined Pincher’s suitability before he was promoted to a role in charge of discipline and pastoral care of MPs but said it could not block any appointment based on “unsubstantiated rumour”.
The sixth scandal involving alleged sexual misconduct of an MP under Johnson’s government broke on Thursday after the Sun reported Pincher had allegedly drunkenly groped two men at the Carlton Club in Piccadilly, London.
The deputy chief whip, who played an instrumental role in propping up Johnson’s premiership earlier this year, wrote to the PM saying he was resigning for “embarrassing” himself, but No 10 initially said there was no need to remove the whip as he had taken responsibility.
Senior Tories, including the former ministers Caroline Nokes and Karen Bradley, had called for the whip to be withdrawn and the allegations to be investigated, while Neil Parish, who resigned as a Tory MP after viewing pornography in the Commons, accused Johnson of “double standards” regarding his own treatment compared with Pincher’s.
The accusation was repeated on Friday night by the Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen, who told BBC Newsnight he had “a lot of sympathy” with Parish’s claims.
Nokes and Bradley, both select committee chairs, wrote to Johnson on Friday urging him to bring in “zero tolerance” for cases of sexual misconduct, adding that the whip should be withdrawn while thorough investigations are carried out in each and every case. They also called for a code of conduct for Conservative members.
Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, accused Johnson of having been “dragged kicking and screaming into taking any action at all”.
“He just can’t be trusted to do the right thing. This whole scandal is yet more evidence of his appalling judgment,” she said.
The independent complaints process will be carried out confidentially. However, multiple sources told the Guardian the whips were aware of claims of previous sexual misconduct by Pincher.
A female Tory MP said other ministers and backbenchers had taken it upon themselves in recent months to perform welfare checks on colleagues because “no one had any confidence victims could seriously go to the whips’ office to report inappropriate behaviour” given the previous complaint against Pincher.
Two Conservative MPs also said Pincher was responsible for bullying behaviour towards MPs. Pincher was accused by one senior MP of repeated bullying behaviour and veiled threats of blackmail. “He and his shadow whipping operation were the lead organiser of that kind of activity,” the MP said.
Another MP said: “He is seen as master of the black arts … the only reason the PM was hanging on to him is that he is the holder of more damaging stuff than the damage he is doing to the party.”
Others speculated Johnson was desperate for Pincher not to lose the whip or quit as an MP in case he faced another no-confidence vote.
There was much disgust at No 10’s initial lack of interest in Pincher’s behaviour beyond his admission of drunkenness. “He’s resigned as if he’d had one too many sherbets,” a senior backbencher complained.
It is understood the whips’ office says it has had no formal complaints of sexual misconduct or bullying in relation to Pincher and has a position that it does not act on unsubstantiated allegations, rumour or hearsay.
The incident comes after a group of Tory staffers wrote to the PM and Conservative party complaining that serious sexual abuse, harassment and bullying accusations made against MPs were treated as “mere gossip”. The group of staff working for MPs said “behaviour committed by a few individuals but tolerated by others has stained the reputation” of parliament.
The Pincher affair follows a string of incidents involving allegations of sexual misconduct by MPs including a Tory MP being arrested on suspicion of rape, who has not had the whip removed.
Imran Ahmad Khan, the Conservative MP for Wakefield, was found guilty in April of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy after plying him with gin at a party. Khan assaulted the boy in Staffordshire in January 2008, 11 years before he became an MP. He resigned as an MP two weeks after he was found guilty.
Parish, the MP for Tiverton and Honiton, also stood down in April after admitting to watching pornography on his phone in the Commons, with the party subsequently losing its huge majority in the seat to the Liberal Democrats.
Another Conservative MP, David Warburton, lost the whip after the Sunday Times reported he was facing allegations from three women.
Warburton, 56, was accused by one of the women of climbing into bed with her naked. She told the newspaper she repeatedly warned that she did not want to have sex with him, but alleged that he ground his body against her and groped her breasts.
He is said to have denied any wrongdoing and said he had “enormous amounts of defence, but unfortunately the way things work means that doesn’t come out first”.
Only one Conservative appeared to rally to Pincher’s defence on Friday. Peter Bottomley, the longest-serving MP, said in a WhatsApp message to colleagues that he hoped “Pincher is soon back in government”. The government said Pincher had been replaced as deputy chief whip by Kelly Tolhurst.
