MP Jared O’Mara faces Labour probe over ‘comments from earlier this year’

Labour has launched an investigation into MP Jared O’Mara’s comments and behaviour following claims he called a constituent an “ugly bitch” just months before his election.

Mr O’Mara “categorically denies” the claim made by his Sheffield Hallam constituent Sophie Evans about an incident in March this year.

On Monday Mr O’Mara resigned from his position on the Commons Women and Equalities Committee in a row over homophobic and sexist online comments posted more than a decade ago.

Newly revealed online comments from the same period show he also made derogatory remarks about the Spanish and Danes.

Labour said the investigation into Mr O’Mara related to the allegations from this year.

“The party is investigating Jared O’Mara MP in relation to comments and behaviour reported from earlier this year,” a spokeswoman said.

Senior Labour figures had branded the alleged comments “unacceptable” and party leader Jeremy Corbyn faced calls to remove the whip from the MP.

Mr O’Mara won the Sheffield Hallam seat in June, ousting former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg.

Ms Evans told BBC Two’s Daily Politics programme that some of the comments made to her by Mr O’Mara in March this year “aren’t broadcastable”.

“There were some transphobic slurs in there, but he called me an ugly bitch,” she said.

“I just thought ‘wow, he’s not a very nice man’ and just forgot about it.

“I knew that he was involved in politics but I had no idea at the time he was running for MP for Sheff Hallam, which is my constituency.”

She added: “I just kind of thought that someone like that couldn’t possibly be that heavily involved.”

Ms Evans dismissed Mr O’Mara’s claims that he had changed his ways in the years since his online posts, which dated to the early 2000s.

She said: “Fair enough for him to have said that about 15 years ago, but he won’t even acknowledge something that happened seven months ago.”

A spokesman for Mr O’Mara said: “He categorically denies the latest allegations.”

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the language allegedly used by Mr O’Mara was “unacceptable”

Shadow women and equalities minister Dawn Butler also said the alleged remarks were “completely offensive”.

She told Daily Politics: “It’s not acceptable and it’s completely offensive language.

“I’m pleased that Jared has gone on a journey, I think he has probably got further to go on his journey.”

In an interview with Huck magazine, Mr O’Mara said he had made a “full and unreserved” apology to Labour MPs about the online remarks and felt “deeply ashamed” of his past comments.

Asked if he should quit Parliament, not just the Women and Equalities Committee, he said: “In terms of resigning as an MP?

“I think there’s a place for me … I want to educate people and help people going through those prejudices grow out of them.

“I’ve gone on that journey and feel I can help.

“If a Conservative MP had made similar comments I’d say it depends on what journey they had been on since.

“If they’d honestly changed and believes in equality and egalitarianism then absolutely (they have a place in Parliament), but the very culture of conservatism doesn’t foster that equality.”

In the online posts, Mr O’Mara used gay slurs, joked about having an orgy with members of Girls Aloud, claimed Michelle McManus only won Pop Idol “because she was fat” and suggested it would be funny if jazz star Jamie Cullum was “sodomised with his own piano”.

Further online comments published by the Guido Fawkes website show Mr O’Mara in a discussion about football referring to Spaniards as “dagos” in 2002 and accusing a Dane of being a “pig shagger”.

Cabinet minister Justine Greening asked Mr Corbyn whether he would withdraw the whip from Mr O’Mara.

In a letter to Mr Corbyn, Women and Equalities Minister Ms Greening said: “How is it that individuals who have made such remarks can be selected as Labour candidates?”