Chris Pincher, the former Conservative MP whose alleged misconduct helped to precipitate Boris Johnson’s departure from Downing Street, has reportedly decided not to stand again at the next election.
Pincher has sat as an independent since he lost the Tory whip in July last year over allegations he had drunkenly groped two men.
Pincher, who was Johnson’s deputy chief whip, said he had “embarrassed myself and other people” after reports of his behaviour at the Carlton Club in London’s Piccadilly. The allegation was reported by Conservative MPs who had witnessed it.
According to the BBC’s Stoke and Staffordshire news, the Tamworth MP has told national and local Conservative officials he will not run again. Pincher was contacted for comment.
Downing Street initially insisted that Johnson and his team had not been aware of any specific previous allegations against Pincher before promoting him to the whip’s office. It later emerged that this was not true. Pincher had previously resigned over claims he had made unwanted passes at a fellow Conservative, for which an inquiry cleared him of wrongdoing.
In an unusual move, Simon McDonald, who was the head civil servant in the Foreign Office when Pincher was a junior minister and Johnson foreign secretary, said the latter had been briefed about an allegation against Pincher of groping.
Downing Street’s initial denials, after months of political pressure on Johnson over reports about lockdown-breaking parties in and around No 10, prompted exasperated ministers to resign en masse, and Johnson to announce his departure.
Pincher remains under formal investigation by parliament’s commissioner for standards for a potential breach of rules connected to actions that cause “significant damage to the reputation” of the Commons or MPs in general. That inquiry began in October.
If he is found to have broken the rules, Pincher could be forced to apologise and could face suspension from the Commons. If that were to last 10 days or more, a byelection could be triggered in his constituency.
Adding to the pressure on Pincher to depart is the fact that Eddie Hughes, a fellow Tory MP and former minister, is understood to have ambitions to fight the Tamworth seat after his Walsall North constituency was effectively abolished under boundary changes.
