Rayner demands Raab retract pro-Cox comments

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has written to deputy prime minister and justice secretary  Dominic Raab, asking that he retract comments made earlier today in support of an MP under fire for voting in parliament via proxy while spending weeks in the British Virgin Islands doing lucrative work for an international law firm

Rayner denied Raab’s claim that Cox’s work offering legal counsel to the government of the British Virgin Islands was “quite important”, arguing that: “The Conservative MP in question [Sir Geoffrey Cox] was not engaging in a fact-finding mission… he was advising the government of the British Virgin Islands against our own government on how to defend against allegations of corruption.”

She said his comments, which Number 10 appeared to distance themselves from earlier today, were “arrogant and out of touch”.