The UK’s ruling Conservative Party suspended Member of Parliament (MP) Mark Menzies following a Wednesday report from the Times, alleging misuse of campaign funds. The MP will lose his position in the party but will still remain in Parliament as an independent while the party undertakes further investigations.

The Times broke the story, alleging that Menzies, who is the MP for Fylde, Lancashire, called a 78-year-old party volunteer and former campaign manager, claiming that he was locked in a flat in a life-threatening situation and needed £5,000 to secure his release. This amount eventually went up to £6,500, which the volunteer paid from his own savings. The money was then repaid to him from local Tory party funds, the Times says. Menzies has strongly denied the allegations.

The Conservative Party was alerted to the allegations in January 2024, when the campaign manager reported the incident to Simon Hart, the Conservative Party Chief Whip. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps confirmed to Leading Britain’s Conversation (LBC) that the party was aware of the allegations for “a while” in an attempt to explain why the party hadn’t taken action earlier. Shapps stated, “What I understand is that some further information came to light yesterday, that’s a conversation between the chief whip and the individual MP concerned.”

Leader of the opposition Labour Party Keir Starmer said that there were “a lot of unanswered questions in relation to these allegations not least why it seems that the Conservative party took so long to act and whether they’ve reported this to the police it seems to be should be involved in this.”

Menzies’ suspension is the latest in a string of allegations of misconduct against Tory MPs, which has seen the departure of several lawmakers. Just last week, William Wragg, the MP for Hazel Grove in Greater Manchester, resigned as party whip after admitting he had given out colleagues’ contact details to a suspected scammer, who had intimate photos of him.