Conservative MP to resign after porn admission
May 5, 2022 · By RTE News for www.rte.ie
Neil Parish said he was looking at tractors online before going to a site with a similar name
Conservative MP to resign after porn admission
British Conservative MP Neil Parish has bowed to pressure to say he will resign after admitting to watching pornography in the UK House of Commons chamber.
The 65-year-old farmer admitted to the BBC today that he watched adult material twice in Britain’s parliament, claiming the first time was accidental after looking at tractors online.
The select committee chairman had initially vowed to continue as MP for Tiverton and Honiton.
In the interview with BBC Politics South West, he said he first thought he would explain to the standards committee what had happened, but could see the “furore and the damage I was causing my family and my constituency” and decided to act.
Mr Parish, looking visibly emotional, told the BBC he was looking at tractors on the internet and went to a website with a “very similar name” adding: “I watched it for a bit, which I shouldn’t have done.”
Mr Parish went on to say he had then viewed pornography for a second time in the chamber.
He said: “My biggest crime is that on another occasion I went in a second time.”
That was “deliberate”, Mr Parish acknowledged, saying that this happened while he was sitting waiting to vote “on the side of the chamber”.
Asked why he had done so, Mr Parish said it was “a moment of madness, and also, totally wrong”.
The politician said he wanted to put on record “for all my rights and wrongs, I was not proud of what I was doing and the one thing I wasn’t doing, 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.”
Asked again why he had viewed the material, he said: “I must have taken complete leave of my senses and my sensibilities and sense of decency, everything.”
Mr Parish said he was “not defending what I did for one moment” adding he thought the best thing he could do was to “tell the truth”.
A spokesperson for Tiverton and Honiton Conservatives said: “We would like to take this opportunity to thank Neil Parish for his service to our communities over the past 12 years.
“We support his decision to step down as our Member of Parliament.”
