(Bloomberg) — UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak disowned the alleged bullying behavior of former minister Gavin Williamson and said he regrets appointing him to his Cabinet last month.
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Williamson, a close ally of the premier, quit just 14 days after Sunak entered No. 10 Downing Street promising that his government would be based on the principles of “integrity, professionalism and accountability.”
The damaging departure followed a slew of allegations about Williamson’s treatment of civil servants and fellow Members of Parliament that are now subject to investigation, and raises questions over Sunak’s political judgment in appointing him.
Williamson Downfall Hints at More Problems Ahead for UK’s Sunak
“I obviously regret appointing someone who has had to resign in these circumstances,” Sunak said in his weekly question session in the House of Commons on Wednesday. “For the record I did not know about any of the specific concerns relating to his conduct as secretary of state or chief whip that date back some years.”
The remarks contrast with Sunak’s original comments in a letter to the departing minister when he quit on Tuesday. He made no reference to the bullying allegations — which Williamson denies — and expressed “great sadness” at the politician’s resignation. Opposition Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer used that line to attack Sunak’s response, asking him how the victim of one of the alleged incidents will have felt.
‘Unacceptable’ Behavior
“Unequivocally the behavior complained of was unacceptable,” Sunak responded. “It is absolutely right” that Williamson resigned.
A controversial figure in Westminster, Williamson had already been forced to resign from previous governments twice before, on one occasion after former Prime Minister Theresa May publicly accused him of leaking confidential information relating to national security, a claim he denied. As a former government chief whip in charge of party management, Williamson was famous for keeping a tarantula called Cronus on his desk.
But despite his scandal-ridden history, Sunak invited him back into the Cabinet as a minister without portfolio, a role with limited tangible policy responsibilities. The move was seen as a reward for Williamson’s political support during Sunak’s campaign for the Conservative leadership.
Williamson, a former government chief whip in charge of enforcing party discipline, has a reputation as a formidable behind-the-scenes operator. But his past caught up with him. Since the weekend, he faced a slew of allegations of bullying, sending threatening text messages and attempting to exert inappropriate pressure on Conservative colleagues.
Denial
“I refute the characterization of these claims, but I recognize these are becoming a distraction,” Williamson wrote in his resignation letter to Sunak, posted on Twitter.
The backlash against Williamson from within the Conservative Party is a reminder of how there are still bitter factions on Sunak’s back benches that are ready to make his life difficult. Though Tory MPs have largely rallied around their new leader, Sunak still has detractors in Westminster, including ministers he fired who’d served under former premier Liz Truss — such as ex-party chairman Jake Berry, who stoked the Williamson issue — and some arch-loyalists to Boris Johnson who blame Sunak for his downfall.
Starmer told Sunak: “The problem is he can’t stand up to a run-of-the-mill bully, so he has no chance of standing up to vested interests on behalf of working people.”
Managing those disgruntled groups will be an important task if Sunak is to succeed. The spectacle of more Tory infighting is likely to further damage his party’s poll ratings and it only takes a rebellion of about 10% of his MPs for Sunak to risk losing a vote in the House of Commons. That’s why he must tread carefully on issues about which Tory MPs hold strong views, such as up-rating pension and welfare payments in line with inflation and planning reform.
‘Threatening’
On Monday, The Guardian newspaper reported that Williamson had bullied a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defence and told them to “slit your throat” while serving as defence secretary under former Prime Minister Theresa May. Williamson had already been under pressure over a separate bullying claim from another Conservative MP.
On Tuesday night, Channel 4 News aired an interview with Williamson’s former deputy when he was chief whip, Anne Milton, who said his behavior was “threatening” and “intimidating” when he held the post, and that he would use MPs’ health problems as “leverage.”
She recounted one incident when he had asked her to give a check to an MP who needed financial assistance. “And he waved it under my nose and said, ‘Make sure when you give him this check, he knows I now own him’,” she said. “I don’t think it was a joke. It was the seriousness with which he said it.”
–With assistance from Joe Mayes.
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