Ahead of Elections, a Scandal Rocks House of Commons

A British lawmaker from the governing Conservative Party has resigned after admitting he watched pornography on his phone in the House of Commons chamber.Neil Parish, a member of Parliament for Tiverton and Honiton since 2010, announced his decision Saturday after pressure from members of his own party who sought to defuse sleaze allegations before Britain holds its local elections on May 5. The ballot is seen as pivotal for the Conservative prime minister, Boris Johnson, who is already facing a voter backlash over lockdown-breaking parties in government offices during the Covid-19 pandemic.Mr. Parish, 65, stepped down after what he described as a moment of “madness.” The chairman of the house’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Mr. Parish said he was trying to look at a tractor website, but stumbled into a porn site with a similar name and then “in a moment of madness” returned to the site deliberately and watched it for “a bit.’’That explanation prompted a torrent of derision in the British press. “MP Neil Parish searched for ‘Dominator combine harvester’ before stumbling across porno filth in Commons, pals say,” Britain’s Sun Tabloid taunted. “Neil Parish – the Tory MP quitting the Commons in disgrace,” the Guardian coolly quipped. “‘I was looking at tractors’ is one for the history books,” one commentator thundered in the Daily Telegraph. Cheeky headlines and Internet jabs aside — for a while his Wikipedia name had been altered to “Neil Pornish” — the scandal comes at a precarious moment for Mr. Johnson, who will face pressure to resign if the Conservatives do poorly in the local elections. Reports that a lawmaker had watched pornography amid the historic green benches of the House of Commons triggered a flood of complaints from women in Parliament about the misogyny and sexual harassment they say they have faced while doing their jobs.Long known for its boozy, macho culture, Parliament is now a more diverse place, with women holding almost 40 percent of the seats in the House of Commons. Yet lawmakers and staff say harassment and inappropriate behavior are still rampant under a system that largely allows members to police themselves.The Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said Mr. Parish’s resignation should be a moment for people across Britain to say “enough is enough.”“I don’t think there could really be any other outcome to what has come to light about this particular MP over the last few days,” she said while campaigning in Fife, Scotland. “Watching porn on a mobile phone in the House of Commons when you’re there representing constituents is just unacceptable.”Mr. Parish rejected the notion that he meant to intimidate anyone.“For all my rights and wrongs, I was not proud of what I was doing,” he said. “And the one thing I wasn’t doing, and which I will take to my grave as being true, is I was not actually making sure people could see it. In fact, I was trying to do quite the opposite.”

Ahead of Elections, a Scandal Rocks House of Commons

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