Britain's Conservative Party is today suffering the fallout from the resignation of London mayor Boris Johnson’s deputy amid allegations of inappropriate behaviour and financial irregularities.
Ray Lewis was forced to step down yesterday after Mr Johnson decided he could no longer offer him the “backing necessary to continue” having been misled over his role as a magistrate.
Labour heavyweights seized on the resignation, suggesting it raised questions both for the mayor and Conservative leader David Cameron.
Communities Secretary Hazel Blears MP said: “David Cameron has known Ray Lewis since his first day as Tory leader and Boris Johnson appointed him as deputy mayor days into the job. People will ask themselves, how have they allowed themselves to be embroiled in a mess like this?”
On Thursday it emerged that Mr Lewis was facing multiple claims relating to his time as a priest and as founder of an academy for young people. They relate to alleged inappropriate behaviour with a parishioner in the late 1990s and while at a youth scheme founded by Mr Lewis in 2003.
Separate claims of financial irregularity centre on money entrusted to the deputy mayor while he was a priest.
But Mr Lewis was forced to step down after it emerged Mr Johnson had been misled over being a serving justice of the peace.
In a statement yesterday, Mr Lewis said that the “seeming duplicity” over his role as a magistrate - he has been recommended but not actually appointed - was the main reason for his resignation.
Mr Lewis said he was resigning in the face of an “avalanche” of allegations. The “drip, drip” of allegations was “getting in the way of the very important work of this mayor and his vision for London,” the former deputy mayor said.
Yesterday’s resignation was the second to damage the Mr Johnson's team since his election on May 1st. Last month one of his senior advisers quit after apparently remarking that Caribbean immigrants should go home if they did not like London.
PA