Labour has blasted Boris Johnson for claiming shamed Chris Pincher did the “decent thing” by quitting as Deputy Chief Whip amid groping allegations.
Chairwoman Anneliese Dodds demanded the Prime Minister should think again.
In a scathing letter to Mr Johnson, she said: “The fact you regard it as ‘decent’ reveals a great deal about what you regard as acceptable standards of behaviour.”
She also piled pressure on the PM to come clean over what he knew of previous claims about the Tamworth MP, and when.
On Sunday the disgraced Tory enforcer faced further groping allegations dating back a decade.
The PM is under fire for claiming Pincher did the “decent thing” by quitting his post on Thursday amid claims that he had groped two men at the Carlton Club the night before.
The PM delayed suspending the party whip from Pincher until Friday.
Labour Chairwoman Anneliese Dodds blasted in a letter to Mr Johnson: “The British people deserve to know why Mr Pincher was appointed as the Deputy Chief Whip when he has a history of alleged inappropriate sexual behaviour.”
Pincher had previously quit the whips’ office in 2017 after a complaint that he had made an unwanted pass at former Olympic rower and Tory candidate Alex Story. Mr Story alleged the MP had untucked the back of his shirt, massaged his neck and whispered: “You’ll go far in the Conservative Party.”
Pincher is alleged to have made further unwanted passes at two Conservative MPs in 2017 and 2018. Another Tory MP also claimed he was groped on two occasions by Pincher, first in December 2021 and again last month.
It was also alleged he threatened to report a parliamentary researcher to her boss after she tried to stop his “lecherous” advances to a young man at a party conference. It has previously been claimed Pincher “touched up” ex-Labour MP Tom Blenkinsop, who told him to “f*** off”.
The PM’s former top adviser Dominic Cummings alleged Mr Johnson referred to “Pincher by name, pincher by nature” long before appointing him Deputy Chief Whip in February. One report claimed Mr Johnson told aides he had the “support of all the sex pests” in the Tory party for his successful 2019 leadership bid.
Yet, defending the PM’s decision to hire him, Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey insisted yesterday that he had not known about “specific claims”.
She said: “I don’t believe he was aware, that’s what I’ve been told today.”
One of last week’s accusers said he was “shell-shocked” by the decision not to immediately kick Pincher out of the parliamentary party. He told the Sunday Times: “I am angered...by the way No10 have dealt with it.”
Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the Tory Party “repeatedly chooses to do what is politically expedient over what is right”.
He added: “It’s clear from what we know this morning that Chris Pincher should never have been put back into the Whips’ Office.”
After Pincher quit on Thursday a Tory source said: “The PM thinks he’s done the decent thing by resigning.”
But in her letter to Mr Johnson published tonight, Ms Dodds fumed: “I would like to place on record how inappropriate it was to suggest Mr Pincher did the ‘decent thing’ in resigning. His resignation is the very least that anyone expects.
“The fact that you regard it as ‘decent’ reveals a great deal about what you regard as acceptable standards of behaviour and I urge you to reconsider this language.”
She added: “The British people deserve to know why Mr Pincher was appointed as Deputy Chief Whip when he has a history of alleged inappropriate sexual behaviour.”
She asked whether “you or senior members of your advisory team, including your Chief of Staff, [were] made aware of allegations of inappropriate behaviour by Mr Pincher prior to his appointment”.
The scandal is the latest to hit the Tories in recent months.
In May, Neil Parish quit as MP for Tiverton and Honiton after admitting viewing porn in the Commons. In April, then-Wakefield MP Imran Ahmad Khan was jailed for 18 months for sexually assaulting a boy of 15. The Tories lost both ensuing by-elections.
A third unnamed Tory MP has been told to stay away from Parliament after being arrested on suspicion of rape and other offences.
Pincher said in a statement that he would “cooperate fully” with an investigation by Parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme and that he was seeking “professional medical support”.
Neither he nor his lawyers responded to the specific claims when the Mirror contacted them yesterday. But newspapers which published the allegations said he denied them.
