It sounds a bit like a spy thriller: a British MP is lured with nude pictures, passes on his own photos and is blackmailed into passing on telephone numbers. Now the police are checking whether secret services are behind it.
An MP from British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party is apparently embroiled in a sexting message blackmail scandal. William Wragg, vice chairman of a key caucus committee, told the Times newspaper that he exchanged intimate photos with a person he met on a dating app for gay men.
He was subsequently blackmailed with the pictures and forwarded personal telephone numbers of colleagues to the contact.
Is there a foreign secret service behind it?
Sexting is the private exchange of self-produced photos with erotic content via cell phone or the Internet. The “Politico” portal had previously reported that several politicians, political consultants and journalists working in the parliamentary district had been written to with personal messages and sexually explicit images. These are obviously attempts to compromise these people.
According to the Times, in addition to Tory MP Wragg, another parliamentarian responded to news stories with their own photos. The conservative chairwoman of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Alicia Kearns, suspects that a foreign secret service is the mastermind. The police are now investigating.
“Disturbing and worrying”
For the government, Finance Secretary Gareth Davies described the situation on GB News as “worrying and worrying”. He emphasized that Wragg had apologized. However, there were also calls from the Tory party that the 36-year-old should resign or be suspended from the group, as “Politico” reported.
Wragg, who is openly gay, had long ago announced that he would no longer run in the parliamentary elections planned for this year.