Tory MP David Warburton sees whip withdrawn following harassment probe
David Warburton, Tory MP for Somerset and Frome, saw his whip withdrawn following an investigation by the harassment watchdog. the Whips Office said today.
Complaints sent to the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme alleged the 56-year-old behaved inappropriately.
“I have enormous amounts of defence, but unfortunately the way that things work means that doesn’t come out first,” the MP told the Telegraph.
“I have heard nothing whatsoever from the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme.”
Warburton is the second MP to see their whip revoked following allegations of misconduct.
The Labour Party was forced in February to suspend Bermondsey and Old Southwark’s MP Neil Coyle, after journalist Henry Dyer accused him of racism, City PM reported.
Dyer, an Insider journalist, said that on 1 February Coyle had used Sinophobic slurs while talking to him, making him uncomfortable in his place of work. Two days later, the journalist informed Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who initially opted for the six month suspension.
“The Speaker and his staff took immediate action, in conjunction with the Serjeant at Arms and the House of Lords’ authorities, to suspend Coyle from the bars on the Parliamentary estate pending an investigation by the Labour Whips office into the incidents on Monday and Tuesday evening,” Dyer wrote in a piece for Insider.