UK minister quits over intimidation ruling
A junior minister has resigned from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government after being found to have breached parliamentary standards by making “veiled threats” in a family financial dispute.
A standards watchdog ruled Conor Burns had threatened to use parliamentary privilege in the Commons – parliament’s elected main house to raise his father’s long-running dispute with a company.
Parliamentary privilege gives legal protection to lawmakers making statements in parliament.
“With deep regret, I have decided to resign as minister of state for international trade,” Burns tweeted.Burns said he would continue to give the prime minister his “wholehearted support” as a backbencher.
The watchdog said Burns wrote a letter on House of Commons stationery about “a purely personal family interest, and attempt(ed) to secure a payment to his father by suggesting he might use parliamentary privilege to raise the case in the House”.
He told a company executive, who made a complaint, that he could avoid the “potentially unpleasant experience” of being named in parliament by helping to secure the payment sought by Burns’ father.
“Mr Burns persisted in making veiled threats to use parliamentary privilege to further his family’s interests even during the course of the (standards) commissioner’s investigation,” the watchdog said.
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It found that Burns was “concerned solely with the financial affairs of a close family member”.Burns apologized to the committee, saying he “absolutely should not have written to the complainant in the terms (he) did or used House stationery to do so.”
