Senior MP William Wragg has resigned the Conservative whip after he admitted giving politicians’ phone numbers to a suspected scammer.
The party’s whips office said he was “voluntarily relinquishing the Conservative whip” after he had already stepped back from his roles as vice-chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee and chairman of the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.
The Hazel Grove MP had previously announced his intention to leave Parliament at the next election and will now sit as an Independent.
Mr Wragg admitted last week that he had given colleagues’ phone numbers to someone on a dating app amid fears that intimate images of himself would be leaked after he was targeted in a parliamentary sexting scam.
Scotland Yard has said it is investigating reports of the so-called “honey trap” scam after it was suggested that at least 12 men in political circles received unsolicited messages, raising security concerns.
The investigation is not thought to involve the security services.
The unknown scammer is said to have used the aliases “Charlie” and “Abi” while sending flirtatious messages to coax MPs into sending explicit pictures.
Mr Wragg said he was sorry for his “weakness” in responding, an apology which was praised as “courageous and fulsome” by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.
But pressure has mounted in recent days amid concerns over parliamentary security, with critics from across the political divide questioning Mr Wragg’s behaviour.
Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden said Mr Wragg had been “right” to resign the whip, but declined to comment further when asked by Sky News whether he had been pressured into that decision.
Labour’s national campaign co-ordinator Pat McFadden said the fact Mr Wragg had not been stripped of the whip was “another indictment of Rishi Sunak’s weakness”.
He said: “His MPs were left yet again being sent out to defend a position that has collapsed.
“Rishi Sunak puts party management first every time – and he can’t even do that properly. It is no way to run a country.”
