Labour frontbencher suggests aide in harassment case should lose job

LONDON — A Labour adviser allowed to keep their job despite an investigation finding he sexually harassed a young intern should be sacked, shadow cabinet minister Jonathan Reynolds suggested Thursday.

POLITICO reported Wednesday that a party aide advising a senior opposition politician will remain in post despite a complaint against him being upheld twice — by parliamentary investigators and, separately, by Labour after a probe which ran for three years. The move has sparked an outcry among prominent women in the party.

Pressed on whether the adviser should lose their job Thursday, Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds stressed that he did not “know the details of this case” and would caution against going “off what’s in the press.”

He stressed that Labour’s complaints process “removes any kind of political factor or any kind of political consideration from the process.”

But he warned that any Labour figure found to have groped an intern should lose their job.

“I don’t think anyone who behaves that way should continue with employment in any circumstance,” Reynolds told Times Radio.

Reynolds is the latest senior Labour figure to react to the case, which has again shone a spotlight on how misconduct allegations are handled in Westminster.

Labour MP Stella Creasy, a campaigner for women’s rights in parliament, told POLITICO “it’s deeply troubling that this case shows we could be employing people who have been found to abuse their position.” At least one shadow minister has also said they will raise the case with party bosses.

Asked about the case in the weekly briefing for Westminster reporters, Starmer’s spokesman insisted Wednesday that Labour has a zero tolerance approach to sexual harassment and that the case had been dealt with by “a thorough, robust, independent process.”