Sexual assault: regrettable, but no impediment to a parliamentary career
According to Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, the conviction of fellow MP Imran Ahmad Khan for child sexual assault was just based on “lazy tropes about LGBT+ people”. Amazing, really, that it was the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on LGBT+ issues who was the only person seemingly making a link between gay men and paedophilia in the wake of Khan being found guilty of assaulting a 15-year-old boy, after plying him with alcohol. I want to say “you had ONE job, Crispin”, but I see that among other things, the Reigate MP is a paid board member of a hotel group. So … you had SOME jobs, Crispin. But let’s be crystal clear here: none of them was you, a former minister of justice, claiming that child sexual assault was “an event that was minor on any scale”. In reality, the only minor involved was the victim.
If you missed it, this is the story of the Wakefield MP, Imran Ahmad Khan, who has now been expelled from the Tory party after yesterday’s conviction at Southwark crown court. He will naturally be appealing and remaining as an MP while he does that – and we’ll come to the section on the expanding number of Commons crims in a bit. Anyway, once the guilty verdict came in, Crispin Blunt – that mangled instance of nominative determinism – opted not to shut up/pipe down/fail to chime in. Instead, Blunt decided that the case was “a dreadful miscarriage of justice”, and promptly posted a lengthy and clearly considered statement calling it “nothing short of an international scandal”. Even more boggling was the bit where Blunt described the entire business for Khan as “this nightmare start to his parliamentary career”.
Start to it? A way of putting it that reminds us that once we’ve put this silly business of child sexual assault behind us, Imran should be expected to ascend swiftly toward at least the cabinet without further trifling impediment.
Anyway. As of Tuesday morning, Blunt has quit his chairmanship of the APPG, after a spate of resignations looked like reducing its next meeting to a room empty but for the presence of Blunt and his self-regard. Admittedly, you would still need a room slightly larger than the vehicle assembly room at the Kennedy Space Centre, sometimes cited as the largest single chamber on Earth. But it also tells you something about the size of the shit sandwich that he has served himself that the eternally shameless Blunt has actually cottoned on that he has to quit and apologise for his comments. Unless there is something wildly askew with parliamentary ethics, he will be now be relieved of the Tory whip, ideally before I begin typing the next paragraph.
And yet, I hate to break out the spoilers this soon, but I’m afraid there IS something wildly askew with parliamentary ethics. And, indeed, Westminster ethics beyond the chamber. Starting with those first, the victim explained that he contacted the Conservative press office before Khan was elected in Wakefield in 2019, and informed them that he had been sexually assaulted by him as a child, and that there was a police report of the matter. Nothing whatsoever seems to have been done. “I wasn’t taken very seriously,” he said. “She said, ‘Well … ’ and that’s it. I said, ‘I’m going to the police’ and she said, ‘Well, you do that.’”
Blunt was not the only one to defend Khan. A character statement was provided to his defence by Adam
Holloway, who you may recall also provided a character statement for former Tory MP Charlie Elphicke, who was convicted of sex offences against two women. Holloway was subsequently forced to apologise for his attempt to stop that statement being made public. Still, he is in … well, you wouldn’t call it good company, would you, but there is certainly a real little community of grotesques in the House of Commons. The Sunday Times wrote of the “protection racket” of MPs who propped up Elphicke before he was found guilty and imprisoned, including Holloway, Theresa Villiers, Bob Stewart and Roger Gale. Elphicke’s wife, Natalie, remains an MP in his former seat, despite having only recently signed a witness statement in which she accused one of the victims of his crimes of lying.
Still want more? Tory MP David Warburton has just had the whip removed over multiple sexual assault allegations. In December, his ex-colleague and former minister Andrew Griffiths was found by a high court judge to have repeatedly raped and abused his wife. Former Labour member Claudia Webbe remains an MP, despite having been handed a two-year suspended prison sentence for a campaign of harassment against a woman, with the trial hearing this had included the threat of an acid attack. Webbe’s appealing that, so she remains in the Commons. Any others? Hang on – Rob Roberts sits as an independent, despite having been found to have sexually harassed two members of his staff by an independent panel and the Tory party respectively, but was bafflingly given his Conservative membership back. Without wishing to go out on a limb here, this feels like … quite a lot? There are only 650 MPs. Is this a normal distribution of such abysmal and repulsive behaviour?
Alas, here we are at the last paragraph, and I note Crispin Blunt still hasn’t been relieved of the whip. But the Metropolitan police has just confirmed it has now made more than 50 – FIFTY! – referrals for fixed-term penalty notices for lawbreaking Downing Street parties during lockdown. And No 10 confirms that two of those are for the actual prime minister and the actual chancellor. Just so endlessly, endlessly impressive.Then again, “most homes” and “most businesses” broke the law in the pandemic. We know this, because it was recently stated as fact by a hugely versatile authority figure. His name? Crispin Blunt. What a dazzling run of public service it continues to be.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist