A Conservative MP resigned the whip Friday saying he wants “to save my party embarrassment” over claims in a BBC documentary that he breached parliamentary rules on lobbying.
Newark MP Patrick Mercer also said he would not stand at the next general election, ahead of the Panorama programme due to be broadcast next week.
“Panorama are planning to broadcast a programme alleging that I have broken Parliamentary rules,” Mercer said in a statement.
“I am taking legal advice about these allegations — and I have referred myself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
“In the meantime, to save my party embarrassment, I have resigned the Conservative Whip and have so informed Sir George Young. I have also decided not to stand at the next general election.”
A Conservative Party spokesman said Prime Minister David Cameron was aware of Mercer’s resignation, adding: “He thinks Patrick Mercer has done the right thing in referring himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and resigning the whip.
“It’s important that the due processes take their course.”
Mercer, a former army officer who once worked for the BBC as a defence correspondent, was sacked from the Tory frontbench by party leader Cameron in 2007 over allegedly racist comments about British troops.
In an interview with The Times, Mercer said: “I came across a lot of ethnic minority soldiers who were idle and useless, but who used racism as cover for their misdemeanours.”
The then Conservative spokesman on homeland security also told The Times that claims of racism by British soldiers from Commonwealth countries were “absolute nonsense, complete and utter rot”.