A sexting scandal involving a handful of British politicians is taking new turns as it evolves with every passing day. Yesterday another heavy weight politician, ex-British prime minister Boris Johnson, said that it was “rather humiliating,” as he was not contacted by the honey trapper.
The scandal was first brought to public at the start of this month by Politico, a European publication based in Brussels. The story involves that British MPs and journalists in Westminster were targeted by WhatsApp messages from two different numbers using the names “Abi” and “Charlie.” The chats started with light flirting and, in some cases, reached a level where explicit photos were exchanged.
Just recently, a senior MP, William Wragg, also resigned as the Conservative Party’s whip after the sexting scandal. He admitted that he shared fellow politicians phone numbers with a man he met on a dating app, along with explicit images in a scandal involving other parliamentary leaders as well.
He said in a statement to a new paper that,
“They would ask for people. I gave them some numbers, not all of them. I told him to stop. He’s manipulated me and now I’ve hurt other people.”
Source: The Times.
So who’s left behind?
Boris Johnson seemed like he was feeling left out when he spoke at an event in Washington. According to him, he had not been contacted during the scandal involving other politicians. When the story-breaking publication asked him if he had been affected, he replied by saying,
“Not yet! Rather humiliating, nobody has bothered.”
Source: Politico
Boris Johnson who changed his phone number back in 2021 when a website popbitch said that his number had been available online for the past 15 years. Johnson also faced intense questioning when a large number of messages were not recovered from his phone in a COVID-19 inquiry.
So who were contacted, if not Boris Johnson?
Until now, 23 politicians have been confirmed to have been contacted by the honey trapper who received messages on WhatsApp, and another three who were reached out to on the Grindr gay dating app. All the politicians contacted are males with mixed sexual orientations, some gay and some straight, in their late 20s to early 40s. One of them is a serving minister in the British government, and the other are MPs for Labour and Tory.
A woman MP, Andrea Jenkyns of the Conservative Party, has also claimed that she was also targeted, but the publication said that it could not verify the claim. Along with Johnson, there are other prominent politicians who have publicly said that they have also been ignored by “Abi” and “Charlie.” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, a Labour leader, have said that they didn’t receive any messages as part of the scandal.
The Metropolitan Police and the government have not said anything about the culprit yet. The police are already investigating the matter with the help of intelligence officials. And the politicians are not considering an operation from a rogue state, according to the sources of the publication.
Ciaran Martin, of the U.K. government’s online spy agency GCHQ, said,
“This doesn’t look like any of the digital espionage or human influence operations we’ve seen from hostile states in the past. That’s not to say a nation state isn’t behind these actions. We just don’t know, from the information that’s been made publicly available, anyway.”
Source: Politico.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has also warned against threats from bad actors who may cause damage to democratic processes, as such incidents are already happening around the globe.
Original story at Politico.
