UK sleaze row MP Owen Paterson quits politics

LONDON — A Conservative MP embroiled in a furious standards row has announced he will quit parliament.

Owen Paterson said he will “remain a public servant, but outside the cruel world of politics,” in a statement posted on Twitter. 

His decision comes after a government U-turn on an attempt to protect him from sanction after he was found to have broken House of Commons lobbying rules.

He said the last two years had been an “indescribable nightmare” and maintained “I am totally innocent of what I have been accused of.”

His resignation will trigger a by-election in North Shropshire, which has been an ultra-safe Conservative seat for many years.

Paterson served as an MP for 24 years and held several Cabinet positions, including environment secretary and Northern Ireland secretary.

After he was found to have used his position as an MP to lobby on behalf of two companies that paid him as a consultant, allies began an effort to block sanctions against him.

Paterson — whose wife took her own life last year — had pushed back against the watchdog’s findings, saying the investigation had gone “against the basic standard of procedural fairness” and failed to call relevant witnesses.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson had convinced enough MPs on Wednesday to back throwing his case out and overhauling the regime for keeping parliamentarians in check.

But the prime minister changed course on Thursday following widespread anger and a refusal from opposition MPs to discuss a replacement approach.

The prime minister’s spokesman said the government changed its approach once it became clear cross-party consensus “wasn’t going to be possible.”

A junior ministerial aide, Angela Richardson, who lost her job on Wednesday after she refused to back the government, has been reinstated.