(Bloomberg) — Gavin Williamson resigned from Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet over bullying allegations, a damaging first departure from the new UK prime minister’s top team that raises questions over his political judgment in appointing him.
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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.”
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.
But despite his scandal-ridden history, Sunak decided to invite 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.
But it’s also opened the premier up to attack from the opposition Labour Party, with Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy telling BBC Radio on Wednesday that the episode raised “real questions” about Sunak’s judgment.
“It’s unacceptable,” Lammy said on BBC Radio on Wednesday. “We really should have an account of why he came back into government.”
Williamson, a former government chief whip in charge of enforcing party discipline, has a reputation as a formidable behind-the-scenes operator. But it was that reputation that soon 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 Tory colleagues.
“I refute the characterization of these claims, but I recognize these are becoming a distraction,” Williamson wrote in a resignation letter posted on Twitter Tuesday night. Sunak in his reply didn’t mention the bullying allegations.
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.
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.
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 Kitty Donaldson.
(Updates with comment from Labour’s Lammy in fifth, sixth paragraphs.)
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