Conservative MP William Wragg will keep the party whip after he said sorry for being caught in a honeytrap sexting scandal by sharing other MPs' personal information with someone he was talking to on the gay dating app Grindr.
Wragg, who is vice chairman of the 1922 Committee, gave colleagues' personal details to a person he met on Grindr, and they exchanged explicit and private images. He said he was “scared” that the person “had compromising things on me.”
The Times reported that those individuals, including several MPs and a political journalist, were sent unsolicited messages. Two MPs are understood to have responded with explicit images of themselves. Experts believe the blackmailer was part of a calculated spear phishing attempt, a social engineering method used maliciously to exploit targeted individuals on a network in a bid to gain access.
Wragg made an apology speaking to the Times:
“They had compromising things on me. They wouldn’t leave me alone. 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. I got chatting to a guy on an app and we exchanged pictures. We were meant to meet up for drinks, but then didn’t. Then he started asking for numbers of people. I was worried because he had stuff on me. He gave me a WhatsApp number, which doesn’t work now. I’ve hurt people by being weak. I was scared. I’m mortified. I’m so sorry that my weakness has caused other people hurt.”
Wragg will keep the party whip and not face investigation since he is also a victim of the attack, according to a further development broken by the Times. The 36-year-old MP, however, had already made the decision not to stand down at the next general election.
Leicestershire police and parliamentary security teams are investigating, which has raised wider concerns about national security and the personal vulnerability of politicians.
