...and one of his key MPs faces grope claim, too
ONE of Jeremy Corbyn’s key allies is under investigation after being accused of groping a woman at the Labour conference.
MP Clive Lewis is said to have given her backside ‘a big squeeze’.
It came as Carl Sargeant, a Labour Cabinet Member in the Welsh government, quit over ‘shocking and distressing’ allegations against him.
The alleged incident with Mr Lewis happened in September at a fringe event held by Momentum, the grass-roots organisation that supports Mr Corbyn.
The former frontbencher, who has been tipped as a future Labour leader, denies the allegations.
He was condemned by other Labour MPs last month after an ‘ inexcusable’ video emerged of him making sexist comments at the conference in Brighton. He was forced to apologise for saying ‘Get on your knees, bitch’.
The woman delegate in the latest allegation was attending Momentum’s World Transformed event on September 26 when she met the Norwich South MP, The Independent reported. She said that at midnight in a room full of people she introduced herself, recalling: ‘We had a hug and while we were having a hug he gave my bum a big squeeze.
‘My friend... me and him looked at each other and our eyebrows went “whoaaa”.
‘You kind of jump. I didn’t feel grossed out. I definitely laughed. It felt like if you are hugging a mate. I don’t know. It was over-familiar. I had never met him before.’
She continued talking to Mr Lewis afterwards, and even danced with him later, but did not report the alleged incident in the days afterwards because, while it was ‘a shock’, she said she was not immediately upset by it and respected Mr Lewis as a politician.
But she decided to raise the matter later with her constituency party officer and Labour’s central complaints officer after receiving an email setting out Labour’s sexual harassment policy.
Mr Lewis said: ‘I know how I roll. I don’t squeeze women’s buttocks. They are lying or they are wrong.
‘I wouldn’t do that to someone. It’s not what I do, it’s not my style, it’s not how I roll. I do not do that.
‘They have made the allegation and I totally refute it.
‘If someone hugs me, I hug them back. I would completely deny it.’
A Labour spokesman said: ‘The Labour Party is investigating a formal complaint against Clive Lewis.’
Meanwhile, Mr Sargeant, the Welsh Labour government’s cabinet secretary for communities and children, vowed to clear his name after stepping down and being suspended from Labour during an investigation.
A spokesman for First Minister Carwyn Jones said: ‘Following allegations, received about Carl Sargeant’s conduct, the First Minister has removed him from the cabinet and has asked Welsh Labour to launch a full investigation.’