Fallon quits as Westminster sex scandal claims its first scalp
Conservatives plunged into new sleaze crisis Defence Secretary admits ‘falling short’ in standards
THERESA MAY’S Government was thrown into crisis last night after the Defence Secretary became the first minister to resign over the sex scandal engulfing Parliament.
Sir Michael Fallon said that his conduct may have fallen below the standards now expected of those in public life. He did not detail his misdemeanours but said that the “culture has changed over the years”.
The resignation last night came less than 24 hours after Downing Street announced a Cabinet Office inquiry into whether another senior minister – Damian Green – had acted inappropriately towards a younger woman.
Several other senior ministers have been named in a dossier circulating in Westminster that makes unverified accusations about sexual conduct.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said earlier this week that any unwanted sexual behaviour is “completely unacceptable in any walk of life”.
The Conservatives now fear that the issue will undermine the Government in the same way that sleaze came to destroy the Major administration of the Nineties.
The Defence Secretary sent his letter of resignation to the Prime Minister at 7.30pm after admitting that he had touched the knee of a female journalist at a conference dinner 15 years ago.
Friends of Sir Michael said that while no new allegations had been made against him, there were concerns that other incidents which he had previously considered to be “flirtation” were about to become public.
The Prime Minister praised Sir Michael for “the characteristically serious manner” in which he had considered his position and the “particular example you wish to set to servicemen and women”.
Mrs May is not expected to mount a full reshuffle but instead directly replace Sir Michael with another minister.
Sir Michael told the BBC: “We expect the very highest standards of the Armed Forces and I don’t think it’s right that on occasion in the past that where I’ve fallen below those standards that I should continue to serve as Defence Secretary.
“The culture has changed over the years. What might have been accepta- ble 15, 10 years ago is clearly not acceptable now.
“Parliament now has to look at itself and the PM has made very clear that the conduct needs to be improved and we need to protect the staff of Westminster against any particular allegations of harassment.”
He added: “I think we’ve all got to look back now at the past and there are always things you regret and would have done differently.”
Mrs May told him: “As Secretary of State for Defence since July 2014, you have championed our brave Armed Forces and made sure that the Government has been able to fulfil its most fundamental responsibility: the defence of the realm.
“You should take particular pride in the way the United Kingdom has risen to the challenge of tackling the barbaric threat of Daesh.
“Thanks to the bravery of our Armed Forces, Daesh is being defeated, and three million people have been freed from its murderous rule.” Sir Michael’s shock resignation comes less than 24 hours after Mr Green was referred to the Cabinet Office by the Prime Minister for an investigation into alleged misconduct.
Kate Maltby, a journalist and Tory activist, accused Mr Green of making two inappropriate advances. He strenuously denies the claims and has instructed libel lawyers, and is also prepared to release text messages he sent to her to try to prove his innocence. Mrs May yesterday resisted calls by Tory MPS to suspend Mr Green while the investigation into his conduct is taking place. He was yesterday positioned just one seat away from her during Prime Minister’s Questions.
Friends of Mr Green said that he is prepared to fight any new allegations that emerge about his conduct. “The claim was totally leftfield. If there are more people out there prepared to make claims like this then he will defend himself,” the ally said.
Last night, Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, warned that those with questions to answer over allegations of sexual harassment and abuse should be on their guard.
She said: “Just because we have a woman at the top of the tree doesn’t mean sexism is resigned to the dustbin of history.”
Commenting on allegations of abuse in Westminster she added: “The houseclearing that is about to happen is needed to make sure things can never return to how they were before.”
The names of Sir Michael and Mr Green appeared on a list of unverified sexual misconduct allegations naming 40 Tory MPS that is circulating Westminster.
Two Tory ministers named on the list yesterday publicly denied any misconduct and said that the allegations, which are said to have been compiled by an anonymous Tory aide, are “malicious”.
The Defence Secretary admitted to the 2002 incident on Monday, but Mrs May subsequently gave him her backing. She said that he was “right” to apologise but did not refer him for an official investigation.
At the time of the incident, Julia Hartley-brewer threatened to punch
SIR MICHAEL FALLON was the great survivor of the modern Conservative party, whose departure from the Cabinet breaks one of the last direct links with Margaret Thatcher’s administration.
Seen as a steady presence in government, Sir Michael supported Remain during the EU referendum campaign and gave Theresa May his backing during last summer’s Conservative leadership battle.
He was also one of a small number of Tory MPS who tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Mrs Thatcher not to resign as prime minister in November 1990. After Mrs Thatcher, Sir Michael served under six leaders – John Major, William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard, David Cameron and Mrs May.
Sir Michael made himself indispensable to both Mr Cameron and his successor Mrs May, being regularly deployed on the airwaves to attack Labour’s policies. Most notably during the 2015 general election he fronted an attack on the personality of Ed Miliband, claiming that he had stabbed his brother in the back to become Labour leader and he would also stab Britain in the back to become prime minister.
Praise for Sir Michael was last night led by Mrs May who told him in a reply to his resignation letter: “I appreciate the characteristically serious manner in which you have considered your position, and the particular example you wish to set to servicemen and women and others.”
Sir Michael, 65, could trace his political career back more than 30 years, first entering Parliament as MP for Darlington at the 1983 general election, losing his seat in 1992 and returning as MP for Sevenoaks in 1997.
His ministerial career could be divided into two distinct halves. In 1987 he was made a Parliamentary aide to Cecil Parkinson, the energy secretary, before joining the whips’ office in 1988.
Mrs Thatcher made him a minister in the Department for Education in July 1990 and – along with Michael Portillo and Michael Forsyth – he attempted to persuade her not to resign as prime minister in November of that year. She later wrote of the encounter: “They arrived about midnight and tried in vain to convince me that all was not lost ... I said that I would sleep on my own resignation, as I always did with important matters, before making my final decision; but it would be very difficult to prevail if the Cabinet did not have their hearts in the campaign.”
Sir Michael stayed in the job after Mr Major became prime minister until the 1992 election. In his five years outside Parliament, he set up children’s nurseries with money from Duncan Bannatyne, the former Dragons’ Den star.
Sir Michael re-entered the Commons in May 1997 – alongside Mrs May – when Labour won a landslide election and scores of his colleagues lost their
seats. In opposition, he served on a number of Commons committees, notably as a member of the Treasury select committee from 1999 to 2010 where he regularly held Gordon Brown, the Labour chancellor, to account. But he was never seen as close to the modernising team around Mr Cameron, who became leader in 2005.
Once he had become prime minister Mr Cameron swiftly saw the advantages of giving Sir Michael – a polished media performer – a more hands-on role as his unofficial “minister for the Today programme”.
Mr Cameron made Sir Michael his party’s deputy chairman in September 2010, before making him a business minister in 2012 and an energy minister in 2013. It was as a business minister that Sir Michael used his extensive experience in the City – he served a spell as a director of the broker Tullett Prebon – to successfully float the stateowned Royal Mail.
In 2014, he took on the role of minister for Portsmouth and was appointed defence secretary the same year.
At the Ministry of Defence, Sir Michael was the public face of the military’s attempts to tackle the rising threat of the so-called Islamic State in the Middle East. His appointment to the MOD coincided with Mr Cameron’s decision in September 2014 to send troops to the Middle East at the request of Iraq’s government.