Jared O’Mara, who ousted former Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, to become MP for Sheffield Hallam in this year’s General Election issued a “grovelling apology” for sexist and lewd comments which were published on a well-known UK political blog, Guido Fawkes. O’Mara made the comments on a music forum, “Drowned in Sound” in 2004 when he was 23 years old.
The Sun newspaper reports:
Jared O’Mara was forced to say sorry for his sick online posts just weeks after Labour launched a crackdown on abuse in the party…
in one sick outburst he declared it would be funny if jazz musician Jamie Cullum was raped to death. He wrote: ‘It would be no great loss to the music world if he was sodomized with his own piano and subsequently died of a sore arse. In fact, it would be quite funny’.
…He also described Sheffield United supporters as ‘f***ing pigs” and the residents of Leeds as “a bunch of rugby lovin’ c****’.
O’Mara had some advice for members of girl band, Girls Aloud, as The Independent reports
“Girls Aloud – I advise you to sack Sarah and the remaining four members (Nicola, Cheryl, Nadine and Kimberley) come have an orgy with me.’
In March 2004 on the same forum, he suggested Pop Idol’s 2003 victor McManus ‘only won because she was fat’. The blog also alleges that O’Mara referred to women as ‘fatties” who “do not deserve our respect.’
Mr O’Mara, who has cerebral palsy, added: ‘Being a disabled person, I would hate to win something because people thought I was ‘brave’ or felt sorry for me, rather than for my superior ability/talent. Liberal Democrat peer and former leader of Sheffield Council Lord Scriven said: ‘It seems like a nasty pattern of sexist language and misogyny is developing from the Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam.”
This is another embarrassment for Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in his effort to crack down on abuse in his party.
As the Sun explains “The revelation will reignite the ongoing row about abuse within Labour, after boss Jeremy Corbyn said ‘as the party of equality, there can be no place in Labour for prejudice.’ One of his top allies was reprimanded last week after he was filmed saying ‘Get on your knees bitch’ at a party hosted by hard-left group Momentum. A recent meeting about abuse within the fractious party descend into farce when top official claimed MPs who are disloyal to Mr Corbyn ‘deserve to be attacked’. Labour’s powerful National Executive discussed vicious abuse aimed at Labour MPs from hard-left supporters of Jeremy Corbyn in September. But Pete Willsman, secretary of the Labour Campaign for Democracy, claimed: “Some of our MPs deserve to be attacked. Today O’Mara has apologised for his ‘inappropriate’ language after some of his rants were published by the Guido Fawkes blog.
Only in Britain…O’Mara was a member of the parliamentary “Women and Equalities Committee”, but was forced to step down yesterday. As The Guardian explains:
O’Mara had initially said he wanted to continue to sit on the committee in order to work to confront misogyny.
But he stepped down from the committee after it emerged that homophobic posts had appeared under his pseudonym on a fan website for the musician Morrissey in 2002, including references to gay men as ‘fudge-packers’ and ‘poofters’.
One comment read: ‘I find it funny how some homosexuals think they have the monopoly on being subject to abuse, they should try being ginger … AND disabled!’
Tulip Siddiq, another Labour MP who also sits on the committee, said: ‘Jared’s comments are obviously unacceptable and he’s rightfully apologised for making them. ‘Jared has, however, told me personally that he’s been on a very long journey since he posted the comments 15 years ago, made at a troubled time in his life, and I think it takes some self-awareness to acknowledge that and say it publicly. He should get some credit for that.’
At the parliamentary Labour party meeting of backbench Labour MPs on Monday night, O’Mara spoke to colleagues and apologised again, a Labour source said. Stephen Doughty, the co-chair of Labour’s LGBT PLP group, said he had spoken to the MP about his ‘totally unacceptable’ comments. ‘I raised my deep concerns directly in person with Jared this afternoon and have received a frank apology,’ he said in a statement posted on Twitter.