UK MPs eroding public trust with 'carousel' of misbehavior

LONDON: From watching pornography in parliament to numerous sexual assault allegations, British lawmakers in the current parliament have engaged in a range of bad behaviour that experts say is eroding trust in politics.

A MP suspended himself from the Conservative parliamentary party this week over claims he misused campaign funds, becoming the latest in a long list of Tories accused of misconduct recently.

The scandals are leading to calls for the UK parliament to clean up its act, as Britain readies to head to the polls in a general election due later this year.

They are also adding to a sense that this Tory government — in power for 14 years —is nearing the end of its days at the helm.

“Just when you think that must be it, the Tories get hit by another sleazy sandal,” Tim Bale, politics professor at Queen Mary University of London, told AFP.

“It will just confirm what most voters, according to opinion polling, seem to think — namely that this government has simply run its course and needs to be put out of its misery sooner rather than later.”

Mark Menzies lost his job as a government trade envoy on Thursday after The Times newspaper reported that he allegedly used thousands of pounds of money given by donors to pay for medical expenses.

Menzies, 52, is also accused of paying “bad people” £6,500 ($8,000) after they apparently locked him in a flat in the middle of the night after he went drinking with a man he met on an online dating site.

He strongly denies wrongdoing and the Tories are investigating.

The case comes after Conservative MP William Wragg resigned his party whip earlier this month for giving the phone numbers of other MPs to a person he met on the dating app Grindr. He said he feared the person had compromising information on him.

A handout photograph released by the UK Parliament shows Britain’s Conservative MP Suella Braverman speaking during a statement of Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Iran’s missile attack on Israel, in the House of Commons, in London, on April 15, 2024. PHOTO BY JESSICA TAYLOR / UK PARLIAMENT / AFP

Elsewhere, Scott Benton quit as a Conservative MP last month after being caught in a lobbying sting, while ex-Tory lawmaker Peter Bone resigned after an inquiry found he subjected a staff member to bullying and sexual misconduct.

Another two Tories recently had the whip withdrawn over sexual assault allegations while a colleague was suspended at the end of last year after being convicted of racial abuse.

Most seriously, ex-Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan received an 18-month jail sentence in May 2022 for sexually assaulting a teenage boy years earlier. Conservative Neil Parish resigned around the same time after admitting watching porn on his phone in the House of Commons.

‘Pestminster’

Later in 2022, allegations that then senior Conservative Chris Pincher had groped two men while drunk helped precipitate Boris Johnson’s defenestration from Downing Street.

Opposition politicians have also been accused of bringing their parties in disrepute, notably Northern Ireland’s Jeffrey Donaldson who resigned in March after he was charged with historical sex offences.

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps denied that the Conservatives — well behind the main opposition Labour Party in opinion polls — have a particular problem behaving.

“In every walk of life there will be people who go off the tracks as it were,” he said Thursday.

Menzies becomes the 18th independent currently sitting in parliament. Another 20 MPs have either resigned from their party or had the whip withdrawn since the 2019 election, before either quitting parliament, joining another party or having the whip restored.

“The number is definitely high compared to previous parliaments,” Sophie Stowers, a British politics researcher at the UK in a Changing Europe think-tank, told AFP.

“It’s hard to judge whether this is down to there being more bad apples than is usual,” or “maybe it’s just a case that in recent years we’ve started to pay more attention to the culture of Westminster”, she added.

Observers note that the complaints process has become more rigorous since dozens of allegations were made in 2017 during Westminster’s #MeToo moment, dubbed “Pestminster”.

The government is also due to table delayed proposals to bar MPs charged with an offence from entering parliament.

A recent Savanta poll found that less than a third of people believed the House of Commons is effective in maintaining high standards in office.

“Part of the reason for this will likely be the seemingly never-ending carousel of misbehaving MPs in the headlines, which absolutely erodes trust in politicians among the public,” associate director Emma Levin told AFP.

“Whoever is in government next will need to rebuild hope that politics and politicians can make a difference, and fast.”