By John Ikani
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 was suspended from Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party on Friday after he reported himself to parliament’s standards commissioner.
The lawmaker subsequently resigned Saturday after admitting he twice viewed pornography on his phone in the House of Commons “in a moment of madness”.
Parish, Chairman of the house’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, said he was trying to look at a tractor website, but stumbled into a porn site with a similar name and watched it for “a bit”.
“I think I must have taken complete leave of my senses and my sensibilities and in a sense of decency, everything,” he told the BBC. “[It was] a moment of madness and also totally wrong… I’m not going to defend it.
“My biggest crime is that on another occasion I went in a second time, and that was deliberate.’’
Earlier this week British media had reported that a female Minister said she had seen a male colleague viewing pornographic material while sitting beside her in the Commons chamber and the same MP watching pornography during a committee hearing.
Reports that a lawmaker had watched porn 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 have faced while doing their jobs.
“I was not proud of what I was doing,” Parish said, adding that he had not intended those around him would see it.
“I am not going to defend what I did. What I did was absolutely, totally wrong… I think I must have taken complete leave of my senses.”
In an interview with The Times newspaper published before his resignation, Parish’s wife said she was not aware of her husband having done anything similar before and that her husband was “a lovely person”.
“It was all very embarrassing,” the newspaper quoted Sue Parish as saying.
“My breath was taken away, frankly.”
Parish’s resignation will trigger a by-election in his Devon constituency, in which the Conservatives held a 24,239 majority over Labour in the 2019 general election.
Shadow Commons leader Thangam Debbonaire told the BBC it was “the right decision” for Parish to resign.
“It’s shocking that the Conservatives have allowed this debacle to drag out over many days,” she said.
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