Johnson ally quits after groping claims
A TORY MP and close ally of Boris Johnson said yesterday he was to stand down after being accused of sexually assaulting a Labour MP.
Ross Thomson protested his innocence but said he had made the “hardest decision of my life” not to contest Aberdeen South at the general election. But The Daily Telegraph understands he only quit after Aberdeen City Conservative Association made clear it had lost confidence in him.
Simon Turner, chairman of the association, is understood to have told the MP he would not sign Mr Thomson’s nomination papers at a crisis meeting at Mr Thomson’s flat in the city after Paul Sweeney, Labour MP for Glasgow North East, accused the MP of drunkenly groping him.
Mr Thomson, 32, dismissed the claims as “politically motivated smears” when they emerged yesterday, but local Conservative members were understood to be deeply concerned about their impact.
They threatened to damage attempts to hold the seat gained from the SNP in the 2017 election with a 4,752 majority.
His decision to stand down is embarrassing for the Prime Minister as Mr Thomson was his campaign manager in Scotland for the leadership contest.
He quit after Mr Sweeney, 30, claimed in a Sunday newspaper that Mr Thomson groped him in the Commons Strangers’ Bar in October 2018 and argued Aberdeen South voters should be made aware of this before the election.
The Labour MP claimed Mr Thomson “drunkenly” intruded on a conversation before fondling him and trying to thrust a hand in his trousers.
He said he felt a “moral duty” to report the allegation to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards after Mr Thomson was removed from the same bar in February allegedly for groping other men. Mr Thomson denied all wrongdoing and referred himself to his party’s disciplinary panel. The MP said Mr Sweeney’s allegations were “false” and a “political smear”, before pledging to “continue to fight to clear my name”.
But he added: “Anonymous and malicious allegations this year have made my life a living hell. It has been nothing short of traumatic. My experience is that our politics is now so poisonous that we will never attract good, honest and decent people. I have therefore made the most difficult decision I could ever make and will stand down.”
Tory sources said his local association had “lost confidence in him and felt the campaign would be incredibly hard for Ross.” Although Mr Thomson has been adopted as the Aberdeen South candidate for the forthcoming election, his nomination papers had not yet been submitted.