Westminster must apply the Weinstein Test
Consenting relationships are fine – abusing a position of power in the pursuit of sex is wrong
When I joined the Home Office, I needed high-level security clearance to do my job. The process to get it is lengthy. Special Branch investigators interview friends and colleagues. They go through your bank accounts and internet history. They explore your appetite for drugs and alcohol and any weakness you might have for gambling. They delve into your finances, family and sexual history.
It is an odd experience telling somebody you have just met such personal information, so I remember my interview well. As it ended the investigator gave me half-a-dozen tips. Perhaps suspecting a weakness, one of them was: “If you find yourself being chatted up in a hotel bar by an unrealistically good-looking woman, get out.”
I thought of that advice as I was talking to friends recently about the rumours swirling around Westminster. Not because men and women should suspect one another, but because any man with half a brain and a memory of what he looks like in the mirror should know whether a woman is likely to be interested in him.
For all the complexity in getting to the bottom of some of the specific allegations, what should be called the Weinstein Test is actually simple: did you abuse your position of power over another in order to try to have sex with them?
With the gossip, the rumours, and the allegations that cannot be printed for legal reasons – but which are hinted at by newspapers anyway – it is easy to forget that this is the test. Allegedly owning legal pornography, or making a fool of yourself while making a pass at somebody, are different matters altogether. Yet, somehow, the Westminster rumour mill, the media narrative makers and the redacted “spreadsheet of shame” produced by Tory researchers have elided personal secrets with serious allegations of wrongdoing.
Some of the allegations made on that spreadsheet and elsewhere are clearly criminal and must be investigated. But some are little more than salacious gossip. It does not matter that two unmarried MPS are in a relationship. It is not illegal for two adults to conduct an extra-marital affair. There is nothing wrong with relationships that begin at work. There is nothing inherently sinister about relationships with an age gap. There is nothing inappropriate about a flirtation or a romantic pursuit if it is done respectfully.
What matters is exploitation. It does not take the older and more powerful person – normally but not always a man – to explicitly link the younger person’s career prospects to their willingness to go to bed for this conduct to be called exploitative. These things are presumably subtly established and often left implicit. But abusing your position of power over another in the pursuit of sex is clearly exploitative and wrong, and both people must know when it is happening.
What also matters is harassment. It should not need saying, in 2017, that if a woman says no, she means no. If she says she is not interested in you, respect that fact. If it is not clear that she is happy with you touching her – anywhere at all – then do not do it. Pursuing a woman when it is plain she does not welcome the attention is harassment.
It seems more than likely, given the number of allegations, that there are people in Westminster who have been guilty of behaving in this way. To some degree, this will be because the people who work in and around Parliament reflect the rest of society, and there will always be those who will exploit and harass others if they think they can get away with it.
As far as I know, the whips’ offices report allegations of criminality to the police. But it is obvious that Westminster has a cultural problem. Some people – and we do not yet know how many – will have failed the Weinstein Test. Meanwhile, those affected by their behaviour have lacked obvious channels through which they can complain. These things need to change.
On Monday, the party leaders met and agreed new grievance procedures and face-to-face services for staff. But they should go further. In particular, the terms on which parliamentary staffers are employed should change.
MPS should have the right to decide who they hire, and they should still be responsible for annual appraisals. But MPS should no longer be the legal employers of their staff. Instead, Parliament itself should become their employer, allowing professional human resources support, pay decisions that reflect qualifications and performance, grievance processes that staffers can trust are independent, and better trade union representation if that is what people want.
Many MPS will complain that this undermines their independence or that, somehow, it is overly bureaucratic. But it is a change that has become necessary for good reasons. Parliament is, again, proving itself to be in serious need of reform. This is one change that would protect young staffers and help to clean out Westminster.