The Conservative MP Miriam Cates, a high-profile figure on the party’s right wing, is being investigated by the parliamentary standards watchdog.
Cates, the MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire since 2019, is being investigated for “actions causing significant damage to the reputation of the house as a whole, or of its members generally”, a brief notice on the website of the commissioner for standards said.
The inquiry falls under paragraph 17 of the updated 2019 code of conduct for MPs, which says: “Members shall never undertake any action which would cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole, or of its members generally.”
The announcement does not give any further details. Investigations by the commissioner, Daniel Greenberg, are kept confidential until the inquiry is concluded. Those under investigation are barred from discussing the allegations.
Cates co-founded the New Conservatives group alongside her backbench colleague Danny Kruger. One of a series of right-leaning pressure groups within the Tories, it is among the “five families” of such groups pressuring Rishi Sunak to toughen up his bill seeking to end legal challenges in deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.
“We agree that the bill is defective as it is. We don’t believe it will stop the boats,” Cates told an impromptu joint press conference involving the five groups last week.
Cates is seen as being very much on the culture war-favouring side of the Tory right, also working with another of the five lobbies, the Common Sense Group. She co-founded the New Social Covenant Unit with Kruger, which seeks to promote family-centred policies.
The former biology teacher is a strong advocate of policies to encourage women in the UK to have more children, echoing the ideas of European populists such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, and opposes allowing transgender people to self-identify.
At a conference in May run by the US-based National Conservatism group, Cates said the UK’s low birthrate was the most pressing policy issue of the generation, blaming it in part on “a cultural Marxism that is systematically destroying our children’s souls”.
The use of “cultural Marxism” is controversial because it is a term referring to a conspiracy theory often associated with the far right and antisemitism.
Greenberg is investigating eight MPs, with the inquiries dating back to June. Seven are Conservatives, including Eleanor Laing, the deputy speaker, and Bernard Jenkin. The eighth is the former Tory Andrew Bridgen, who now sits for Reclaim.
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