Tories eject grandee in cash-for-access claim

The Conservative Party has suspended the whip from former foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind and a party disciplinary committee will investigate cash-for-access allegations resulting from an undercover sting operation.

Rifkind, who chairs the parliamentary committee overseeing Britain’s intelligence agencies, was one of two senior British politicians secretly filmed by reporters posing as representatives of a fictitious Hong Kong-based firm seeking to hire senior British politicians to join its advisory board.

The veteran MP is said to have claimed that he could arrange “useful access” to every British ambassador in the world because of his status, while Labour’s former foreign secretary Jack Straw boasted of operating “under the radar” to use his influence to change EU rules on behalf of a commodity firm which paid him £60,000 (€81,820) a year.