UK Conservative lawmaker quits party after leaking colleagues’ numbers

LONDON (Reuters) – A senior lawmaker from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party on Tuesday left the party after he admitted handing over the personal phone numbers of his colleagues to someone he had met on a dating app.

William Wragg, who has been a lawmaker in Britain’s governing party since 2015, is no longer a member of the political party after “voluntarily relinquishing the Conservative Whip.”

The move means he will now sit as an independent lawmaker in parliament.

Wragg has told the Times newspaper he had handed over the phone numbers of colleagues to a man he met on a dating app, part of what is reported to be a wider plot targeting people working in the British parliament.

A spokesperson for the Conservative Party’s leading administrative arm in parliament said: “Following Will Wragg’s decision to step back from his roles on the Public Accounts and 1922 committees, he has also notified the Chief Whip that he is voluntarily relinquishing the Conservative Whip.”