Conservative British Member of Parliament to resign after admitting to watching porn in the House of Commons
- Conservative Member of Parliament Neil Parish announced on BBC that he will resign.
- Parish, a member of Prime Minister Johnson's Conservative Party, admitted to watching porn in Parliament.
A conservative Member of Parliament will resign after he admitted to watching porn in the House of Commons on two occasions.
MP Neil Parish, a member of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Party, announced he will resign on BBC, saying he accidentally viewed pornography while searching for farming equipment online.
"The situation was that I, funnily enough, it was tractors that I was looking at. And so I did get into another website that had a sort of very similar name. And I watched it for a bit which I shouldn't have done," Parish, 65, told BBC.
"My biggest crime is that on another occasion I went in a second time. And that was deliberate," Parish said, calling it a "moment of madness" that was "totally wrong." He admitted to watching pornography while sitting in the House of Commons waiting to vote.
Two female colleagues said they observed Parish watching porn on his phone, per BBC, though Parish denied watching the explicit content with the intent of others seeing it. On Friday, he was suspended by the Conservative Party over the accusations.
"I will have to live with this for the rest of my life. I made a huge terrible mistake and I'm here to tell the world," Parish said. "I make a full apology. A total full apology. It was not my intention to intimidate."
On Saturday, Parish's constituency, the Tiverton & Honiton Conservative Association, said it supports "his decision to step down as our Member of Parliament."
"We would like to take this opportunity to thank Neil Parish for his service to our communities over the past twelve years," the association said in a statement.