A Conservative vice chairman has said he was “honoured” to hold the job after confirming he would be stepping down from the role.
Amid the sleaze row engulfing the party, Andrew Bowie said he wanted to focus on his Scottish constituency.
Bowie, the MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, has a narrow majority, holding the seat in 2019 by only 843 votes in the face of an SNP surge.
“I was honoured to serve as Vice Chair of the Conservative & Unionist party. However, over the last few months, I have come to the decision that I need to take a step back from the demands of the role to focus on representing my constituents,” he said on Wednesday.
When first elected in 2017, Bowie enjoyed a majority of almost 8,000 after being bolstered by a 19 point swing to the Tories.
His decision to step down as vice chairman comes amid a Tory sleaze row after Boris Johnson’s administration attempted to rip up the current parliamentary standards system in a bid to temporarily block the suspension of former cabinet minister Owen Paterson.
After the bid failed in the face of opposition from rival parties, North Shropshire MP Paterson – who had been found by the Commons Standards Committee to have broken the centuries-old ban on paid lobbying by MPs – chose to quit Westminster after 24 years.