A British lawmaker was pressured to resign from his political party Tuesday after making a joke about his female political colleagues being “sluts.”
Godfrey Bloom, a member of the European Parliament and the U.K. Independence Party, said the word while being challenged last week at his political party’s annual UKIP conference over 2004 claims he made about a woman’s place being behind the refrigerator, cleaning, NBC reported. In response to the challenge, he said, “This place is full of sluts.”
He later sent out a Twitter comment, clarifying that he had intended to be outrageous and that women in attendance at the party event had laughed.
His tweet: “Made a purposely outrageous joke among friends which was taken as a joke by women present.”
But fellow UKIP members didn’t see the humor and moved to suspend him. On Tuesday, Mr. Bloom officially resigned from his party affiliation, calling his split with the UKIP — a group that seeks to remove Britain from the European Union — long overdue.
“I have felt for some time now that the ’New UKIP’ is not really right for me anymore,” he said in a statement reported by NBC. “May I take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to the thousands of people who have supported me with messages of good will in the recent months and particularly in recent days.”
Mr. Bloom will spend his remaining 18 months in office — the rest of his five-year lawmaker term — as an independent MEP.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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