Last night, Theresa May won a vote of no confidence, but what did she sacrifice to get there? Though 117 MPs voted to oust her after much delaying on Brexit, 200 voted to keep her in. Shortly afterwards, she said: ‘I am pleased to have received the backing of my colleagues in tonight's ballot.’ Adding that she ‘has listened’ to the third of her own MPs who voted against her, and will go on a ‘renewed mission’ to deliver Brexit.
To do this, she’s now off to an EU summit to see if she can eke out any changes to her withdrawal deal, so that more MPs than just 200 decide vote for it when it’s put to the Commons’ meaningful vote on January 21st. If the deal does get through, we will proceed with Brexit under May’s plans. If it doesn’t get through, May risks another crisis with just a few weeks before the UK is legally bound to leave the EU on March 29th.
However, to get those 200 votes, she reinstated the whip - the privilege of voting as an MP - to two Conservative MPs who’d been suspended after stories of inappropriate sexual behaviour towards women. The damages of Brexit have been speculated on over and over, but the message this sends out - that politics is more important than the serious treatment of allegations of harmful treatment of women - is deeply worrying to many in Parliament and beyond.
Andrew Griffiths, MP for Burton and Uttoxeter, resigned as a minister and was suspended from the whip in July after admitting to sending hundreds of sexually explicit texts to two young women in his constituency. In these texts, which were read out today in the Commons by Labour MP Jess Phillips, and were initially sent within two months of his wife giving birth to their daughter in April, he said things like:
‘I had a ***** who I made dress up like a pig- piggy nose, ears, ********pig written across her forehead and a piggy tail **** ’
And ‘The video of you spanking her was nowhere near hard enough. Can she take a beating? I have to be slightly careful in my job’
And ‘I want her to own you. I want her to tie you up and beat that gorgeous big ass while daddy watches."
‘Imogen **, it's about time you treated with some respect. I'm the boss here.’
‘Are you going to hold XXX down for me while daddy gives her a beating?’
‘Did she properly belt you? I hope she bruised you’
And...
‘I’m going to bring you to London and do whatever I want to you. I’m thinking maybe we need a flat for Daddy’s girls.’ as well as citing his role within the government as proof of his power: ’Daddy’s busy running the country’, he texted the women in a WhatsApp group.
Imogen Trehane, who has a whopping 2,000 of these texts, told the press about the texts her and an unnamed friend, both barmaids, received from Griffiths, along with over £700 in return for explicit videos, said she cut off contact with him because ‘I wanted him to be a nice guy, but by the end I felt dirty. I felt like I was being used for this wealthy man’s gratification’.
Griffiths is under the investigation by his party, and was long before the text messages came out; in late 2017, a former Tory borough councillor Deneice Florence-Jukes, filed a formal complaint against him alleging inappropriate touching and bullying. Florence-Jukes was ‘completely humiliated and bullied’ by Griffiths, and a male colleague also issued a complaint to Conservative HQ against Griffiths’ alleged ‘bullying’.
Griffiths has since apologised to his constituency and family, putting the sexts down to a 'mental breakdown'.
Meanwhile, Charlie Elphicke, MP for Dover, was suspended in November 2017 and was interviewed under police caution following what the chief whip Julian Smith called ‘serious allegations’ of sex offences against two female members of his staff. Elphicke denies any ‘criminal wrongdoing’.
Shadow women and equalities secretary Dawn Butler told The Guardian: ‘It is a betrayal of women for the Tories to let an MP who was suspended for sexual harassment back into their party just to allow them to vote for Theresa May in the leadership challenge.’
Meanwhile Jess Philips has asked the leader of the House of Commons, Andrea Leadsom: ‘What matters more? Political power or protecting victims of sexual harassment and abuse?’
Leadsom responded that she ‘wasn’t privy’ to the chief whip’s decision to allow Griffiths and Elphicke a vote. Though the vote of no confidence was anonymous, Griffiths had declared he would be voting for May.