A Labour MP in Wales has been suspended from the party while an investigation is carried out into “incredibly serious allegations of unacceptable behaviour.”
Geraint Davies, 63, has been MP for Swansea West since 2010 but his administrative suspension means he will have the whip removed at Westminster and will sit as an independent while a review is carried out.
Davies was suspended following allegations made on the website Politico, which claimed he had been responsible for inappropriate behaviour towards younger women at Westminster, including two female MPs.
In a statement to Politico, Davies said: “I don’t recognise the allegations suggested and do not know who has made them. None of them, as far as I know, has been lodged as complaints with the Labour Party or Parliament.”
“If I have inadvertently caused offence to anyone, then I am naturally sorry as it is important that we share an environment of mutual and equal respect for all.”
Davies started out as a councillor in Croydon and led the local council for a year before he was first elected to Parliament in the Labour landslide election of 1997.
He lost his marginal seat, Croydon Central, at the 2005 election but was later selected as the candidate for the safe seat of Swansea West when Alan Williams announced his retirement and reentered Parliament in 2010.
A Labour spokeswoman said: “These are incredibly serious allegations of completely unacceptable behaviour. We strongly encourage anyone with a complaint to come forward to the Labour Party’s investigation.”
She added, “Any complainant will have access to an independent support service that provides confidential and independent guidance and advice from external experts throughout the process.”
Previous Allegations Against MPs
Davies is the latest MP to have faced allegations in the wake of the #MeToo movement.Tendering his resignation, and triggering a by-election which Labour won, Matheson said, “I am dismayed that I have been found guilty of several allegations that I know to be untrue.”
In 2021 a parliamentary watchdog found the Labour MP for Hartlepool, Mike Hill, had committed two breaches of Parliament’s sexual misconduct rules in relation to his behaviour towards a woman in his parliamentary office and at his flat.
Hill resigned and, at a by-election, in May 2021 the Conservatives’s Jill Mortimer won the seat with a huge swing vote.
Several Conservative MPs have also faced allegations.
Pincher, who was accused of assaulting two men at the Carlton Club in London, has been sitting as an independent but in April he announced he would be standing down at the next election.
Shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock said the Labour Party whips are “very alive” to allegations of sexual misconduct.
Referring to investigations into sexual misconduct, Kinnock told Times Radio, “We need to make that happen as rapidly and effectively as possible and make sure that anyone who does feel that they have a complaint to make that they know that they can do so in confidence, and that they will be treated with respect and confidentiality and with action will be taken.”
