After the Conservative then-MP William Wragg last week admitted to having handed over the personal phone numbers of colleagues—including ministers—to a man he had never met in real life on a gay dating app, Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt described him as “courageous.”
Wragg provided the details of his self-inflicted ‘ordeal’ after providing “intimate” images of himself to his mystery online contact. The MP told The Times he was “scared” that the man “had compromising things on me.”
Rishi Sunak decided not to sack Wragg as Tory MP, with one Treasury minister suggesting it was good enough that he had “recognised the seriousness and apologised.”
Some within the party were incensed by this inaction. Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries said Wragg “is absolutely no victim,” describing him instead as “a dangerous player.” Andrea Jenkyns MP added: “I don’t believe he is ‘brave’ whatsoever! I think he is an idiot for compromising security!”
In the end, it was left up to Wragg to sack himself. He resigned the Conservative Party whip, meaning from Tuesday, April 9th he will sit as an independent MP, on . He also stood down from two positions chairing a parliamentary committee and as vice-chair of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs.
This course of action, said former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, was “inevitable” and made Sunak and his Chancellor “look stupid for backing him.”
A member of the public also confronted the prime minister during a rare phone-in session on LBC radio on Wednesday, April 10th. She said:
William Wragg, who put his colleagues and the country’s security at risk, has to sack himself. Doesn’t that show a complete lack and failure of leadership by yourself?
Critics might say that Sunak’s effective non-answer—that this “particular instance is being looked at” by the police—is further evidence of poor leadership.
