A Conservative politician being praised as the United Kingdom’s first “out” transgender Member of Parliament once co-owned a Sugar Daddy website which solicited financially vulnerable young women for sexual relationships with older men.
Jamie Wallis, Member of Parliament for Bridgend, issued a statement on his Twitter on March 29 declaring his transgender identity. In the statement, Wallis says: “I’m trans. Or, to be more accurate, I want to be.”
Wallis, who was elected in 2019, noted that he had no intention of coming out as transgender while a sitting Member of Parliament. But after experiencing a blackmail attempt in 2020, as well as a recent sexual trauma, he felt compelled to finally “live his truth.”
Wallis’ statement was shared by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who lauded the politician for his “bravery” and assured Wallis would be provided ample support from the Conservative Party.
Wallis’ statement was also praised by the Women’s Equality Party, a political body which has previously dismissed members for speaking out on the harms of the medical transition of children.
But on Twitter, many feminists were unimpressed with the cloyingly sweet display from Johnson and the WEP in support of Wallis, specifically because it all appeared to neglect Wallis’ shady history.
In 2020, Wallis was exposed as having co-owned a site called Sugar-Daddies.net, which solicited financially vulnerable people to advertise themselves for sexual connections with “sugar daddies.” While the site claimed it was not sex-specific and welcomed “boys [and] girls,” the market is typically understood as wealthy older men willing to “sponsor” much younger women in exchange for sexual favors.
Wallis’ involvement with the site was exposed by a Buzzfeed investigation, which noted that he had initially denied any involvement with the venture.
“The site appears to have been owned and operated by a company named SD Billing Services Limited. For the avoidance of any doubt, I have never had a financial interest, nor been a director of SD Billing services Limited and cannot comment on its operational activities,” Wallis had told Buzzfeed reporters.
But an annual return filed by SD Billing Services in 2008 demonstrated that 100% of its shares were owned by a company called Fields Group Limited, of which Wallis was a director and shareholder. As a result, Wallis was, in fact, the legal co-owner of Sugar-Daddies.net.
After Wallis’ stake in the site was revealed, Labour politician Jess Phillips called on the Conservatives to expel him from the party.
“Let’s be clear: sugar daddy is a euphemism for something deeply ugly: exploitation of women by powerful men,” Phillips’ campaign said. “The Tories should feel ashamed sitting alongside Jamie Wallis. The only way to show they don’t condone this kind of behaviour is to remove the whip.”
At the time, Labour Member of Parliament Tonia Antoniazzi also backed Phillips’ call to expel Wallis, saying she was “really concerned” about him, and adding that his track record was “dubious.”
Even before the Sugar-Daddies.net scandal, Wallis’ past business ventures had been heavily scrutinized. Several of the companies Wallis owned or had financial interest in proper to being elected to Parliament had been subjected to “hundreds” of trading standards complaints by consumers.
One of Wallis’ companies was an outsourcing agency which fielded jobs to Thailand where staff were paid the equivalent of $3.27 USD per hour. In some of the agency’s listings, “females only” were requested.
In complement to the statement released last night, Wallis issued a second one today clarifying that he would continue to use ‘he/him/his’ pronouns.
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