A senior Conservative MP is under investigation for watching pornography in the House of Commons after furious female colleagues forced government whips to act.
Neil Parish, the MP for Tiverton and Honiton, had the whip suspended after becoming the fourth MP from his party since the last election to face claims of impropriety.
Parish revealed he had referred himself to the standards commissioner on Friday afternoon after senior Tory women expressed outrage at the party for failing to act on complaints made earlier this week despite being aware of his identity.
In a statement, the 65-year-old MP said he would be “cooperating fully with any investigation”. He later told reporters that he may have accidentally opened a pornographic video in the Commons and said he will quit as an MP if found guilty.
The Tory whips had refused to suspend the party whip for more than 48 hours after a female minister and parliamentary aide identified Parish on Tuesday night as the MP they allegedly saw watching pornography in the chamber.
The whips suggested the female MPs should instead make complaints to the parliamentary watchdog, the Independent Complaints and Grievance Service (ICGS), which is now also investigating.
Sue Parish, the MP’s wife, told the Times the accusations were “all very embarrassing”, adding: “My breath was taken away, frankly.
“People shouldn’t be looking at pornography. He would never just sit there with people looking. He would never just do that knowing [people were looking]. These ladies were quite right to be as [upset] as they were.
Describing her husband as a “normal … lovely person”, she added: “If you were mad with every man who looked at pornography, you would not have many wives in the world.
“It’s degrading. It’s demeaning. But on the other hand it takes two to tango. There must be women posing for all this.
When asked what the accusations could mean for her husband’s career, she replied: “I’ve got no idea. It depends on what Chris Heaton-Harris [the Tory chief whip] says, I suppose. I don’t think it’s going to carry on, is it? It’s so stupid. He’s such a good MP. He’s such a good person.”
Labour accused the Tory whips of trying to “cover up” for Parish before they ultimately took the decision to withdraw the whip on Friday.
If found to have brought the Commons into disrepute, Parish could be sanctioned and ultimately face the possibility of a recall petition, potentially triggering a byelection, if suspended from parliament for more than 10 days.
He could also face similar penalties through the ICGS, which can look at cases of sexual harassment. The House of Commons would need to authorise the most severe sanctions of suspension or expulsion.
With dismay among female MPs about the scale of sexism and misogyny in parliament, Boris Johnson is now facing calls from women within his party to take their concerns more seriously. One Conservative peer described a “toxic mix of stress, and booze and testosterone and power” that was difficult to tackle.
It comes less than a week after the whips said they would take steps to identify which anonymous Tory MP was responsible for accusing Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, of crossing and uncrossing her legs in parliament in order to distract him. The story in the Mail on Sunday prompted widespread anger.
One Tory MP and former cabinet minister said she thought Parish should have been “suspended with immediate effect” and referred to the standards system by the whips, adding that she had personally urged them to do so.
Another Conservative MP described the reaction of the whips as “useless” and said their inadequate response was typical of their failure to take women in the party seriously. They also said a culture of failing to tackle misogyny had “come from the top” and was ultimately the responsibility of the prime minister.
Harriet Harman told the BBC Radio 4 PM programme that Parish should stand down as an MP. “This marks a new low for the House of Commons,” the senior Labour MP said. “If this is what he has done, he should stand down from parliament right away. It is not right for him to go through the investigation processes if that is what he has done. Clearly he is not fit to be in parliament. He should accept that and not drag the processes out.”
Johnson had responded to the alleged porn-watching by saying it was “obviously unacceptable for anybody to be doing that kind of thing in the workplace”.
A spokesperson for the chief whip, Chris Heaton-Harris, said Parish was reporting himself to the parliamentary authorities. “Mr Parish has been suspended from the Conservative whip pending the outcome of that investigation,” the spokesperson said.
The standards commissioner, Kathryn Stone, can investigate whether MPs have complied with the House of Commons code of conduct. Paragraph 15 of the code says MPs must “conduct themselves in a manner which will tend to maintain and strengthen the public’s trust and confidence in the integrity of parliament and never undertake any action which would bring the House of Commons, or its members generally, into disrepute”.
Parish has held the safe Conservative seat of Tiverton and Honiton, in Devon, since 2010, winning it with a huge majority of 24,239 in 2019.
He is the chair of the environment, food and rural affairs select committee and is known at Westminster as a champion for animals and farming, quizzing ministers in recent Commons appearances about fertiliser prices and greyhound racing.
Thangam Debbonaire, Labour’s shadow Leader of the House of Commons, said: “The Conservatives knew for days about the disgusting behaviour of one of their MPs and tried to cover it up. From the Owen Paterson scandal to their failure to act against their paedophile MP Imran Ahmad Khan, this is a government rotting from the head down. Britain deserves better.”
Before Parish’s name emerged, several Conservative MPs, including Nickie Aiken and Simon Hoare, had called on the unnamed MP accused of watching pornography to resign rather than risk others being wrongly named.
Anne Jenkin, the peer and co-founder of the Women2Win group trying to get more Tory women into politics, said she thought women would not be put off by incidents of sexual misconduct but it would “makes them angry and angry is good in this space because it’s more likely for women to say, well I’ve got to go into politics to get rid of this stuff”.
She added: “It’s a toxic mix of stress, and booze and testosterone and power that makes it so difficult. And I don’t know what the solution is because you can’t do anything about testosterone and you can’t do much about the stress of it, and the power is inevitable. You can do something about the booze.
“I mind about values and I think there’s a lot of Conservatives who are extremely embarrassed by what is going on.”
Parish gave an interview to GB News this week in which he was asked about allegations of a then-unidentified Tory MP watching pornography in the Commons.
'You are going to get people that step over the line.'
— GB News (@GBNEWS) April 29, 2022
Neil Parish, who has had the whip removed following accusations he watched pornography in the Commons, spoke to Darren McCaffrey earlier this week and denied there was a cultural problem in Parliament. pic.twitter.com/bHHQedHpdo
“I think the whips’ office will do a thorough investigation and we will wait and see that result and from that, then the decision will have to be made what action will be taken,” he said.
Pressed on whether there was a problem with the culture at Westminster, Parish said: “We’ve got some 650 members of parliament in what is a very intense area. You are going to get people who step over the line.” He added: “It does have to be dealt with and dealt with seriously.”
The allegations emerged when female Conservative MPs calling themselves the 2022 group gathered in Westminster to share experiences of misogyny and sexism.
