Conservative leadership knew of bullying in youth wing for years, claims Tory MP

Last Updated: November 19, 2015By

Mark Clarke, who ran unsuccessfully in the 2010 election against Labour’s Sadiq Khan in Tooting, was accused of seeking to blackmail cabinet minister Robert Halfon. Photograph: Facebook

The Conservative party failed to act on complaints about bullying and harassment within its youth wing, a Tory MP has claimed.

Speaking after former election candidate Mark Clarke was expelled from the party for life after accusations of bullying and blackmail, Ben Howlett MP claimed there had been institutionalised bullying in the party’s youth movement, Conservative Future, which he chaired until 2013.

The MP for Bath, who was elected to his seat in May, told Newsnight on Wednesday that he raised concerns about Clarke’s behaviour with the party in 2010 and had talked about Clarke with current party chairman Lord Feldman and the previous chairs Lady Warsi and Grant Shapps MP.

“We’ve complained about [Clarke] for a long period of time, and it’s not just him, it was people that were attributed to him as well,” Howlett told the BBC. “I complained when I was national chairman [of Conservative Future] directly to Sayeeda Warsi as the party chairman, I complained directly to the chairman’s office when Grant Shapps took over as the party chairman and I have to say Lord Feldman has been well aware of all this, for a very long period of time.”

He added: “It was unfortunately swept under the carpet in the big scheme of things, because the party didn’t want to end up having the general election result lost I can imagine, and you don’t want to talk about those kind of thing whilst an election is going on.”

Source: Conservative leadership knew of bullying in youth wing for years, claims Tory MP | Politics | The Guardian

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8 Comments

  1. roybeiley November 19, 2015 at 2:22 pm - Reply

    Wow! Now that is a surprise isn’t it. I thought it was all about jolly hockey sticks and quaffing bottles of Bolly! Bullying? Never!

  2. David Bacon November 19, 2015 at 4:55 pm - Reply

    Why am I not surprised? With all of those young public school people around, it’s inevitable that some lout will try to compensate for his/her intellectual deficiencies with a spot of physicality. They are conservatives after all. Some of them, even when they grow up (sort of), retain a liking for bullying.

  3. David Bacon November 19, 2015 at 5:01 pm - Reply

    William Golding had this sort of bully bang to rights well discussed in Lord of the Flies (Jack) which is based on his sound knowledge of the public school system.

  4. Phil Lee November 19, 2015 at 5:13 pm - Reply

    Isn’t the entire purpose of a government whip to bully backbenchers into toeing the party line?
    No surprise that it extends down the ranks into the youth wing, particularly in the nasty party.

  5. AndyH November 19, 2015 at 5:30 pm - Reply

    It’s like the ‘news’ that the WCA is making sick people even sicker – they are perfectly aware of it, they just don’t give a damn.

  6. NMac November 19, 2015 at 5:55 pm - Reply

    A nasty bully. Sounds to me as if he had just the right qualifications for Nasty Party membership.

  7. David Bacon November 20, 2015 at 8:11 am - Reply

    So, the tory leadership ‘knew’ about the bullying? But would they recognise it? I’d have thought it would be looked at as standard behaviour among young conservatives.
    The Bullingdon Club wasn’t exactly a club for pacifists. One wonders if Big Boris is/has been a bully?

  8. Dez November 20, 2015 at 6:24 pm - Reply

    With those credentials probably had him already lined up to replace softy Dunky Smith to run the DWP stormtroopers………….

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