Call for apology as Blackpool Conservatives row rumbles on

Tony Williams is calling on Blackpool South MP Scott Benton to apologise to him after his complaint prompted the action.

Mr Benton himself has now been suspended after undercover footage appeared to show him offering to lobby on behalf of gambling investors in exchange for money.

Coun Williams said: “I want an apology and it has to be a big fat public apology.

“Scott Benton accused me of trying to bring the party into disrepute when he received a letter of no confidence from the Tory group.

“His complaint got me suspended and I resigned. It now seems that the letter we sent was most definitely the right thing to do but he continued to claim that I had manipulated the whole thing.”

In February, Coun Williams wrote to Mr Benton warning of a vote of no confidence in him by Conservative councillors, who were angry at the selection of candidates for local elections this May.

Mr Benton said Coun Williams had attempted to blackmail him by offering not to publicise the vote of no confidence if ditched councillors were reselected.

The complaint by Mr Benton led to Coun Williams being suspended from the party pending an investigation.

However he chose to resign from the Conservative Party and is now running as an independent candidate at the forthcoming local elections.

He has been a Conservative councillor for 14 years, and served as leader of the group for eight years.

Coun Williams added: “Of course I had kept all the communications between my members that completely proved it was a joint decision to send it.”

Mr Benton has been stripped of the party whip after an undercover investigation for The Times found evidence he was prepared to leak market sensitive information to a bogus investment fund and ask parliamentary questions on its behalf, in breach of parliamentary rules.

A spokesperson for Tory chief whip Simon Hart said that following his self-referral to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Mr Benton “has had the Conservative Party Whip suspended whilst an investigation is ongoing”.