Lord Jonathan Mendelsohn attended the dinner (Picture: BBC)

Labour peer Lord Mendelsohn has been effectively sacked from the party’s front bench after attending the controversial Presidents Club dinner.

The peer had been a Labour spokesman on business and international trade matters in the House of Lords.

Anti-mask protest leader is suspended nurse who compared lockdown to the Holocaust

He agreed to step down this evening.

A Labour Lords spokesman said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn has this evening asked Lord Mendelsohn to step back from the front bench as he attended the Presidents Club dinner, and he has agreed to do so.


‘Lord Mendelsohn has previously made clear that he attended part of the dinner as president of a charity that received support from the event and he had no knowledge of an after-party.



‘Lord Mendelsohn did not witness any of the appalling incidents described in reports and has unreservedly condemned such behaviour.’

The gala was the subject of a major expose in the FT (Picture: Financial Times)

A spokesman for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn added: ‘It’s right that Lord Mendelsohn has stepped down. The reports about this appalling event were deeply shocking and there can be no excuse for anyone’s attendance.’

London could face new coronavirus restrictions 'within days'

The charity gala, which was the subject of a major expose in the Financial Times, is said to have paraded ‘tall, thin and pretty’ young women around, who were then allegedly groped and sexually harassed by guests.

The women – working as ‘hostesses’ for about £15 an hour – reportedly had their phones confiscated, their bathroom breaks monitored, and were made to sign non-disclosure agreements that they weren’t given enough time to read.

The gala was held at the Dorchester Hotel (Picture: PA)

Money was being raised for Great Ormond Street Hospital, with items such as a lunch with Boris Johnson and tea with Bank of England Governor Mark Carney auctioned off.

One of the prizes was plastic surgery, reportedly with an invitation to ‘add spice to your wife’.

The charities who received donations from the club announced the following day that they were returning the money.

Within 24 hours of the article being published, the Presidents Club announced that it was closing down.