The initial Mail on Sunday report sparked 6,000 complaints to the Independent Press Standards Organization (Ipso). However, the regulator said it could not act on their complaints and would require Ms Rayner’s cooperation to assess the accuracy of the allegations.
The press regulator also said it was not his place to act on allegations of discrimination by third parties, as only the person subjected to the alleged abuse was able to claim what Ms Rayner had not formally done through Ipso. .
Amid the backlash, the Mail on Sunday published a follow-up story alleging that Ms Raynor herself had told fellow lawmakers about her attempts to “light up” the prime minister.
A Tory source said: “Following the story of Mail on Sunday Rayner, inquiries have been made about who the Conservative MP is who allegedly made the comments.”
They added: “During these inquiries, it was found that Raynor had made the comments [to the MP] myself.”
But the allegations in their entirety were dismissed as “disgusting sexist slander” by Labor sources.
Ipso said it was acting within its own rules, with sources saying the guard understood that some people would be “disappointed”.
The Hacked Off media campaign group angrily responded to the rejection of complaints against what it described as a “blatantly misogynistic” article.
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