Cabinet minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan says she would have ‘slapped’ Stanley Johnson

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A Cabinet minister has said she would have “slapped” Stanley Johnson if he had inappropriately touched her in the way alleged by fellow Conservative MP Caroline Nokes.

International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan said inappropriate behaviour should “always be called out” and she would “stand by” any victim.

Ms Nokes, the chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, has accused the Prime Ministers’ father of smacking her on the backside “as hard as he could” at a party conference in 2003, two years before he stood as an MP.

It prompted Ailbhe Rea, a journalist for the New Statesman magazine, to accuse Mr Johnson, 81, of having “groped” her at the 2019 Tory conference.

When asked what she would have done in response to the alleged touching, Ms Trevelyan told Sky News: “At the time I would have probably slapped him.

“It would have been an instinctive response from me and I think Caroline will have shown great personal restraint if she quietly moved away.”

When asked if the allegations will be investigated by the Tory Party, she added: “I will leave Caroline to work with the party on that, but we have a robust system in place.

“I hope very much that she will be able to work that through with the party machine, but more widely this is something that all of us who are women, not only in political life, in all sorts of life, have for far too long [had] to tolerate- this sort of casual sexism, the wandering hand. That is completely unacceptable.”

Ms Nokes described the alleged incident during a panel discussion on women’s safety on Monday.

“I can remember a really prominent man smacking me on the backside about as hard as he could and going, ‘Oh, Romsey, you’ve got a lovely seat’,” she said.

“Stanley Johnson did that to me ahead of the ‘05 election, so it was Blackpool… 2003/4.

“I didn’t do anything and I feel ashamed by that… now I probably would.”

Responding to the allegation on Twitter, Ms Rea said: “Stanley Johnson also groped me at a party at Conservative conference in 2019.

“I am grateful to Caroline Nokes for calling out something that none of us should have to put up with, not least from the Prime Minister’s father.”

Ms Trevelyan also talked about her own experiences of being inappropriately touched by men.

“I would sit down at dinner and a hand would suddenly appear on my knee,” the Berwick-upon-Tweed MP said. “And you would [say] ‘excuse me, gentleman on my left who I don’t know, could you remove your hand from my knee’.

“That sort of casual sexism was not uncommon. It is much less common thank goodness.

“We do have much better and robust systems and any woman who receives that sort of abusive behaviour from someone absolutely should feel confident that she can stand up and face them down. But also have the support of those around them to make sure that the abuser in question does not do that. It is not acceptable.”

Mr Johnson lost the campaign to become an MP in 2005. He served as a Conservative member of the European Parliament between 1979 and 1984.

In recent years he has become known for his environmental campaigning and for appearing as a contestant on I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! in 2017, finishing in seventh place.

Mr Johnson did immediately respond to the Standard’s requests for comment.

He told Sky News: “I have no recollection of Caroline Nokes at all - but there you go. And no reply.”

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