An investigation into alleged bullying in the UK Conservative Party’s youth wing has been taken out of the hands of the party.
Following a meeting of the Conservative Party board yesterday, it was announced that the inquiry would be conducted “in its entirety” by the law firm Clifford Chance.
It said the party chairman, Lord Feldman, and deputy chairman, Rob Halfon, would recuse themselves from the board meeting when it came to considering the report.
The board is also to bring in an “independent third party specialist” to undertake a separate review of the party’s governance processes.
The controversy centres on a former party aide Mark Clarke, who was expelled from the party for life after he was accused of bullying young activist Elliott Johnson.
The 21-year-old had made a formal complaint about Clarke in August and claimed he was being bullied by him in the note left before his apparent suicide in September.
Party resignation
Grant Shapps
, who was co-chairman of the party until May, resigned as a minister on Saturday over the scandal. He had brought Clarke on board to run the RoadTrip2015 campaign that was busing young activists round the country.
Shapps quit as international development minister after it was revealed that a Tory peer, Lady Warsi, had written to him in January to demand action against Clarke for abusing her on Twitter, but had not got a satisfactory response.
Earlier, UK chancellor George Osborne strongly defended Lord Feldman, telling LBC radio: “Andrew Feldman is an outstanding chairman of the Conservative Party. He is also a person of real integrity. The Conservative Party is absolutely determined to make sure we find out what went wrong in the past and make sure it’s not repeated in the future.”
There had been criticisms that an inquiry set up by the party to look into the allegations would not be properly independent as evidence would have been gathered by party officials and then passed to Clifford Chance.
However, the statement made clear the law firm would be responsible for taking witness statements as well as collating and reviewing the written evidence.
The firm will also review all interviews which have already been conducted and will give those who have given evidence the option to be re-interviewed.
“No party officials will be involved in this process, other than as witnesses,” the party statement said.
No warning
Until this weekend, Conservative central office had repeatedly claimed it had no warning of Clarke’s alleged behaviour before Johnson’s death.
Feldman is also facing calls from Johnson’s father, Ray, and Paul Goodman, the former Tory MP and editor of ConservativeHome, to take responsibility for the party’s apparent failure to protect young activists.
Before the announcement, a Conservative peer at the heart of the row over the allegations had said the Tories must hold a genuinely independent inquiry.
Lady Pidding, the former chair of the National Conservative Convention, who worked closely with the expelled aide Mark Clarke, said the public would not trust the outcome of a review unless it was wholly independent of the party.
Pidding, who was made a peer by the Tories last month, dismissed reports that she had allegedly passed to Clarke details of complaints against him. “I have already made it clear that allegations made against me are false. I am hiding nothing and I am quite happy to answer any questions an independent inquiry may put to me,” she said. “I believe it is time for the Conservative party to be put up to the same level of scrutiny.” – PA/Guardian service