How Sexual Misconduct Scandals Caused a Stir Within Britain's Ruling Conservative Party

As the British Prime Minister tries to repair his lost credibility in a crucial election year, the revelation of a new sex scandal in the ruling Conservative Party has come to challenge Rishi Sunak once again.

The Westminster honey trap sexting scandal saw at least two dozen people targeted in UK politics and has now cost a senior MP the Tory whip.

London's Met Police announced it is investigating unwanted photos and messages sent to a number of Conservative MPs in a parliamentary scam.

Investigations have revealed that Conservative MP for Hazel Grove, William Wragg, admitted providing his colleagues' personal phone numbers to someone he met on a gay dating app.

Amid numerous calls for his resignation, MP Wragg confirmed that he took this step and provided details of his colleagues' statements because he feared that the person he was dating possessed sexual images that might contribute to tarnishing his reputation.

Blackmail and Pressure

The ruling Conservative Party in Britain is facing the repercussions of a sex scandal that its main competitor, the Labour Party, may exploit, in addition to a number of internal and external issues to destabilize the party's popularity among voters who are already dissatisfied with its performance.

Whenever the British Prime Minister wants to deliver a positive message to British voters, a scandal appears that shakes his ranks.

Now it has happened again — while Sunak wanted to be celebrated for cutting the social security rate by 2 percentage points, Tory MP William Wragg has made headlines instead.

Wragg was recently forced to resign from all his political roles, including his membership in the House of Lords for the Conservative Party, after a mistake he had committed was exposed and it was later revealed that he had harmed a number of his colleagues in the party and in Parliament, which led to his immediate ouster.

Wragg, 36, who is gay, was the victim of blackmail on a dating app for gay men, where he gave in to the scammers' demands and gave them the phone numbers of fellow MPs, it later emerged.

The incident occurred on an American dating app called Grindr, where Wragg met a gay man through the app and then provided him with the numbers of many members of Parliament, in addition to journalists and politicians.

Wragg claimed he was blackmailed into sharing personal information about colleagues after falling victim to a dating app scam.

The MP said he was afraid that the scammer might insult him and publish explicit photos of him, and he was under pressure.

It is noteworthy that MP Wragg had previously spoken about his earlier suffering from problems related to his mental health.

In 2022, he took a short break from his duties as MP during a severe bout with depression and anxiety.

Scotland Yard in London said it was investigating reports of a scam after at least 12 men in political circles reportedly received unsolicited messages, raising security concerns.

The anonymous scammer allegedly used the names Charlie and Abi while sending messages to persuade MPs to send explicit photos.

But pressure has mounted in recent days on the Conservative Party amid concerns about parliamentary security, with critics from across the political spectrum questioning Wragg's behavior.

A few days ago, Politico reported that 12 people working at Westminster, including a minister, had been contacted by someone via WhatsApp who claimed to have met them at a political or social event, in an attempt to obtain personal or sensitive information.

It added that some of the targets were sent nude pictures, noting that at least two also responded by sending sexual pictures of themselves.

Conservative Party Chairman Richard Holden said Wragg was right to resign from his position, but declined to comment further when a journalist asked him whether Wragg had been subjected to party pressure to make this decision.

In turn, Conservative Party economic advisor Jeremy Hunt described MP Wragg's apology as brave and wonderful.

In turn, a former government advisor who was the subject of blackmail said: "After everything that happened, I have no sympathy for Wragg."

He explained that it would have been better for him to face what he did alone rather than give his colleagues' phone numbers to the person he fears and then implicate them as well.

It is noteworthy that the former government advisor received the first message on January 23, 2023, indicating that the online scam had been in operation for at least 14 months.

Conservative Scandals

Although the scandals reached their peak during the era of former Conservative leader Boris Johnson, today with current leader Rishi Sunak, they appear to be more crude, especially after the moral lessons he spoke about during his candidacy for party leadership last summer, pledging integrity, professionalism, and accountability.

Resignations may be one of the most prominent features of successive Conservative governments, but the motives for most of them were neither protest nor revolutionary but rather were forced following loud scandals.

It is noteworthy that the common feature of all these resignations is ignoring serious charges and more serious allegations and keeping their perpetrators in their leadership positions until the investigations are completed and their involvement in a variety of charges is proven, such as harassment, watching pornographic films in Parliament, sexual assault on children, and others.

Johnson was the first to inaugurate this series of new laws through a law that exempts officials from resigning if they make a mistake and only requires them to apologize.

In recent years, scandalous cases between Conservative politicians have increased significantly.

At the end of last October, senior Tory MP Crispin Blunt was suspended by the party after being arrested on suspicion of rape and the possession of controlled substances — allegations he denies.

In July 2022, Christopher Pincher, the former deputy chief whip, was sacked and eventually resigned after being accused of groping two men in a Tory private members' club.

In late April 2022, accusations that Conservative MP Neil Parish had watched pornographic films on his phone in the British House of Commons sparked a wave of condemnation, which later forced him to resign from his position.

Former Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan was jailed for 18 months in May 2022 for groping a 15-year-old boy in 2008.

In 2022, The Sunday Times reported that some 56 lawmakers had been referred to an independent watchdog over sexual misconduct claims since the monitor was created in 2018.

Former Tory MP Charlie Elphicke was jailed for two years in September 2020 after being found guilty of three counts of sexual assault following a month-long trial.

In August 2020, a leading Tory MP was arrested on suspicion of raping and sexually assaulting a Commons researcher.

In June 2020, former Tory MP Rob Roberts was stripped of the Tory party whip after an independent report found he had made repeated and unwanted sexual advances towards a member of staff. But he became a Welsh Conservative Party member again in early November 2021.

Conservative Michael Fallon resigned as defense secretary in 2017, apologizing for making unwanted advances to the journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer in 2002 and for trying to kiss another journalist in 2003.

Conservative Damian Green was sacked as first Secretary of State in 2017 after admitting he lied about the presence of pornographic images on his House of Commons computer.

Conservative MP Stephen Crabb resigned as pensions secretary in 2016 after allegations that he had sent suggestive messages on WhatsApp to a 19-year-old woman whom he had met through his political role. 

In September 2014, Civil Society Minister Brooks Newmark, who had held a seat in the House of Commons for the Conservatives since 2005, was forced to resign from his position after a British newspaper published an article showing that he had exchanged pornographic images with a supposed woman.

In September 2013, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons from the Conservative Party, Nigel Evans, who is gay, resigned after he was accused of raping seven men at his home in Lancashire in northern England during the period between July 2009 and March 2013.