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Tom Harris, a former Labour MP for Glasgow South, slammed “SNP hypocrisy” over the party’s backing one of its members who has been accused of sexual harassment. The SNP claims it has “zero tolerance” policy towards sexual harassment – right up until the moment it matters, according to Mr Harris.
Mr Harris has partially blamed a 2015 SNP rule which doesn’t allow its members to criticise one another. He called the rule “undemocratic”.
The SNP member in question is Patrick Grady, the nationalists’ former chief whip, who was accused by a junior researcher of a “drunken, unwanted sexual advance”.
Ian Blackford, the SNP’s Westminster leader, far from having a “zero tolerance” sexual harassment policy, rallied the party behind Mr Grady, according to Mr Harris.
He claimed it showed the party was more concerned about Scottish independence than the victim of Mr Grady’s alleged harassment.
Mr Harris said: “The distasteful case of the nationalists’ former chief whip, Patrick Grady, and drunk ‘unwanted sexual advance’ [towards] a junior researcher, is on one level about the ongoing scandal of MPs behaving badly towards staffers who are younger and less powerful than they.
“But recent events suggest the SNP see it as being more about the party itself and its top priority – independence – than about any concerns for the victim.”
He pointed to a leaked audio recording that showed Mr Blackford and the SNP’s “hypocrisy” over their sexual harassment policy, according to Mr Harris.
He noted that after Parliament’s sleaze watchdog the Independent Expert Panel said that Mr Grady’s victim had suffered “significant consequential physical impacts”, Mr Blackford “encouraged” Party members to rally behind Mr Grady and “looked forward” to his return.
Writing for The Telegraph, he said: “This revelation was contained in a leaked audio recording of the meeting in question. But instead of addressing the substantive issue of hypocrisy and the apparent abandonment of a victim of sexual harassment, the party’s new chief whip threatened his parliamentary colleagues with legal action for leaking the recording.”
In a statement to the House of Commons Mr Grady said he accepted the panel’s findings “in full and without reservation”.
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He said: ”Mr Speaker, I am profoundly sorry for my behaviour and I deeply regret my actions and the consequences. Any breach of the behaviour codes and associated policies risks bringing this House into disrepute and will cause the stress and upset not just for the complainant but to the wider parliamentary community.”
“I give you and this House my firm assurance that I have learned significant lessons through this process and a firm undertaking that such behaviour on my part will never happen again.”
Mr Harris said the SNP’s behaviour regarding the matter was typical of “any organisation whose leadership considers control and discipline to be of more importance than the victims of bad behaviour by its leadership” and called Mr Blackford’s stance on sexual harassment “PR fluff”.
The “hypocrisy” partially stems from a 2015 rule implemented by the SNP, according to Mr Harris.
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The rule states: “No member shall, within or outwith the parliament, publicly criticise a group decision, policy or another member of the group.”
Nicola Sturgeon, for her part, has yet to comment on the Patrick Grady affair, leaving Ian Blackford to deal with the fallout in Westminster.
Mr Harris said: “How many more examples of nationalist cynicism, how many more times will the party’s true, real priorities have to be exposed, before Scotland’s voters wake up to the SNP’s real nature?
“And how long will it take Sturgeon’s admirers in London’s media bubble to recognise that for nationalists, progressivism is nothing more than a mask, a form of camouflage to be worn, a hashtag to be Tweeted but never, ever to be believed in?”
The SNP has been contacted for comment for this story.
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