On 30 June 2022, Chris Pincher resigned as deputy chief whip following allegations that he had drunkenly groped two men at the Carlton Club in London.

A loyal ally of the prime minister, Pincher was promoted to the position of deputy chief whip in February 2022 in a bid to shore up Boris Johnson’s premiership. It came after the publication of senior civil servant Sue Gray’s interim report into “Partygate” – the scandal relating to a series of gatherings in Downing Street during Covid lockdowns. Gray found that some of the government’s behaviour was “difficult to justify” given the “backdrop of the pandemic”.

Pincher’s appointment formed part of a wider strategic shift termed “Operation Save Big Dog”.

Continued internal pressure triggered a Conservative “no-confidence” vote in Johnson’s leadership on 6 June. The prime minister survived by 211 votes to 148 – a victory that technically secured his position under party rules for another year. However, the scale of the revolt was far larger than had been anticipated.

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The so-called Pincher Affair, and Downing Street’s botched handling of it, formed the final catalyst for Johnson’s defenestration as prime minister.

The incident occurred on the evening of 29 June at the Carlton Club, a traditional Conservative Party establishment. Pincher, who was responsible for maintaining party discipline and MP welfare, was accused of groping two male guests.

In his resignation letter to the prime minister, Pincher admitted that he had “drank far too much” and “embarrassed myself and other people”. The letter contained no admission to the specific allegations of groping.

Initially, Downing Street insisted that the prime minister considered the matter closed and that Pincher would remain a Conservative MP, having lost only his government job.

This position became untenable as a storm of new allegations about Pincher’s past behaviour emerged over the following days. The critical political question became what Johnson knew about these previous allegations when he appointed Pincher to the whips’ office in February 2022.

Downing Street’s official account of what the prime minister knew changed repeatedly.

Ministers were sent out to defend the prime minister with briefings that were later shown to be false, fatally undermining their own and the government’s credibility.

In a critical intervention, Dominic Cummings – former chief adviser to Johnson – claimed the prime minister had once said “Pincher by name, pincher by nature” in reference to the loyalist MP.

https://x.com/Dominic2306/status/1543208854325977088

The scandal culminated in the explosive revelation from Lord (Simon) McDonald, the former top civil servant in the Foreign Office, that Johnson had been personally briefed on a formal complaint against Pincher in the past, during his time as a Foreign Office minister, directly contradicting No 10’s claims.

McDonald wrote an open letter to the parliamentary commissioner for standards and delivered an interview that refuted Downing Street’s line. He likened Downing Street’s statements to “telling the truth and crossing your fingers at the same time and hoping that people are not too forensic in their subsequent questioning”.

His letter read: “Inaccurate claims by 10 Downing Street continue to be repeated in the media. On 3 July, the BBC website reported: ‘No official complaints against [Mr Pincher] were ever made.’

“This is not true.”

It was a devastating intervention.

A government minister subsequently confirmed that Johnson had been made aware of a complaint about Pincher. This latest evolution of No 10’s position proved to be the final straw for the Johnson premiership.

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On 5 July, the health secretary, Sajid Javid, and the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, resigned in protest.

Javid delivered a blistering resignation statement in the House of Commons, drawing parallels with Geoffrey Howe’s fatal parting shot directed at Margaret Thatcher.

The wave of resignations that followed, totalling over 60, forced Johnson to announce his own departure on 7 July, against his obstinate wish to remain in office.

On 6 July 2023, following an investigation into Pincher’s conduct, the House of Commons standards committee recommended the MP be suspended for eight weeks. The recommendation passed the 10-day threshold under which a recall petition would be triggered.

The committee concluded Pincher’s “profoundly damaging” behaviour “represented an abuse of power”.

Pincher subsequently resigned his Tamworth seat, triggering a by-election that was won by Labour. Sarah Edwards, the Labour Party candidate, won with a 23.9 point swing – the second largest from Conservative to Labour since the 1945 general election.