Grant Shapps and Lord Feldman should resign over revelations the Conservative party failed to act on complaints about an election aide at the heart of a bullying scandal, says the father of a young activist believed to have killed himself.
Ray Johnson – the father of 21-year-old political blogger Elliott, who accused the youth organiser Mark Clarke of bullying him before he was found dead in September – said his son would still be alive if the Conservative party and its chairmen had acted responsibly.
His comments came after the Guardian revealed that the Tory peer Sayeeda Warsi wrote to Grant Shapps, her successor as party chairman, in January to demand action be taken against Clarke for abusing her on Twitter.
The uncovering of the letter directly contradicts the party’s claim that it had received no written complaints about Clarke before August.
Johnson called for Shapps, now an international development minister, and the current party chairman, Andrew Feldman, to stand down, and demanded that an independent body be set up in Westminster to deal with such complaints.
“They need to stand down,” he said. “Feldman, Shapps, and whoever else is involved in this; clearly these senior members of the party have been telling lies. You wonder about the people running the country – whether they’re fit to govern.
“If they had behaved responsibly, like any other organisation, none of these events would have happened; my son would still be alive and many activists wouldn’t have been intimidated and harassed.”
Lady Warsi’s letter to Shapps, dated 20 January, accuses Clarke of publicly abusing her on Twitter and says: “I look forward to hearing from you as to what action you intend to take against … Mr Clarke.”
Warsi told the Guardian she never received a satisfactory response to her complaint and said Clarke, who was the Conservative party candidate for Tooting in the 2010 election, was “a disaster waiting to happen and this was common knowledge”.
“During my time as chairman, Mark Clarke was never involved in any initiative that I was involved in or in any campaigning. He was effectively persona non grata, as far as I was concerned.”
Elliott Johnson, a blogger for a Tory pressure group, was found dead on railway tracks on 15 September. He named Clarke as a bully in a letter written before he is believed to have killed himself. Clarke and others are claimed to have leant on him to withdraw a complaint and threatened to ruin his career.
Clarke, who has denied all the allegations against him, said: “I have nothing further to add to my previous statements on Elliott Johnson as I am waiting to speak to the coroner. But I deny any wrongdoing.”
Earlier this month, the Conservative party said it had not received any written complaints about Clarke before August. “We have been checking and rechecking, but have not been able to find any records of written complaints that were made but not dealt with – but we are determined to get to the bottom of what’s happened,” it said.
Evidence that Clarke had been subject to a written complaint as early as January will increase pressure on the party to reveal who knew Clarke had been the subject of complaints over his behaviour, which allegedly included claims of sexual assaults against female activists, attempted blackmail and intimidation of young supporters.
Accusing the Conservatives of turning a blind eye to Clarke’s alleged behaviour, Ray Johnson said: “They should have seen this coming but for their own selfishness, their own desire to climb the greasy pole over the bodies of other people.”
He said this was not the first example of political scandals which could have been avoided if complaints had been dealt with sensitively and seriously.
“Political parties have been able to run out of control without anyone looking at them correctly. It’s time now for an independent body to be set up to govern complaints procedures around Westminster so these are dealt with independently.”
He said of Elliott: “If his death had brought change to the way the party behaves, and brought some truth to the way these people behaved, he would be satisfied.”
The revelation that Warsi had complained about Clarke forms part of an exposé of the breadth of the scandal engulfing the Conservative party. It includes:
- Claims that on the day Johnson was found dead, Clarke was due to meet Conservative officials to hear the allegations made against him.
- A series of leaked Facebook posts in which Johnson reveals he felt intimidated by demands from Conservative Campaign headquarters (CCHQ) that he attend an investigation into Clarke.
- An exclusive interview with a Tory activist who claims he was left distraught after being subjected to an alleged blackmail plot, in which he was filmed performing a sex act.
Johnson’s death has triggered an explosive chain of events which has seen whistleblowers come forward and reveal a wide-ranging number of political figures – some young, some senior – as being tangled up in sleaze and scandal.
Warsi claims she felt Clarke’s wrath when he attempted to troll her on Twitter, implying she was an antisemite. She had attended a fundraising event in January, after which a local Conservative member accused her of making anti-Israel comments in a speech.
In her letter to Shapps, Warsi said “the matter was made worse by your colleague Mark Clarke” who had accused her on Twitter of “slagging off the Jewish Tory party chairman”.
“I raised my own concerns about Clarke with Grant Shapps and never received a satisfactory response,” she told the Guardian.
A Conservative party spokeswoman said: “It is right to look properly at any allegations. An investigation is currently under way and it is not appropriate to comment until we can establish the facts.”
Clarke most recently acted as a director of the Road Trip 2015 campaign, which involved battle buses touring the country to rally support for the Conservatives.
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Among the allegations levelled at Clarke – it is understood more than 25 complainants have approached CCHQ – was a serious one of blackmail made by a Tory activist, who has spoken to the Guardian.
The 20-year-old, who wishes to remain anonymous, made a complaint to the party about Clarke’s behaviour after he allegedly pinned the man’s girlfriend to the wall during a Road Trip 2015 night out.
Three months later, the activist was befriended on Facebook by a French woman who quickly contacted him on Skype, stripped in front of him and persuaded him to perform a sex act. Soon afterwards he received a demand via Skype for €3,500 (£2,500) and was told that if he didn’t pay it the film would be posted on Facebook.
The demand was received four days after he went to CCHQ to give evidence against Clarke. “I was pretty distraught,” he told the Guardian. “Pretty annoyed at myself for letting it happen to me. It was a rough day.”
He said the Conservative party had failed to protect him, Johnson and others. “I think they should have got rid of Clarke sooner,” he said. “People had complained beforehand. They should have started investigating rather than waiting.”
He said he had approached Kent police and alleged it was Clarke who set the sting up and blackmailed him. The constabulary is investigating the allegation, which Clarke denies.
- In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here.
