Lord Scriven: Jared O’Mara's comments are 'the most disgusting I’ve seen in 30 years of politics'
2 min read
Former Leader of Sheffield City Council and Liberal Democrat peer Lord Scriven writes that that Jared O’Mara's views 'do not represent the outward looking, tolerant and accepting people of Sheffield Hallam'.
In all my 30 years in British politics never have I seen such distressing and disgusting comments as made by the Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam Jared O'Mara.
It is not just the homophobic, sexist and racist language and the way in which he describes young people and students of Sheffield, but his total lack of sincere apology and not looking his constituents of Sheffield Hallam in the eye and explaining why he held or still holds such views.
These outbursts are not of some teenager sat in their bedroom. In 2004 O’Mara was a Labour party candidate for Sheffield City Council. He stood in multiple council elections for the Labour Party, never making much progress. Pretending he was new to the party, someone unknown who they had just come across, is a weak excuse the doesn’t hold up. They should be called out at every opportunity for clinging to it.
More recently, only seven months ago, he has been accused of sexist and aggressive language to a woman in a nightclub in Sheffield. The Labour Party have themselves now admitted that they didn’t do any background checks when they selected him.
The litany of despicable comments are not only unfit coming from an elected representative, they are unfit coming from anyone. Yet even without his tirade of abuse he has been a weak MP. He has failed to speak up for his constituents, having never spoken in Parliament and yet to even make his maiden speech despite being in the job for over half a year.
He costs the taxpayer £74,000 a year and the people of Sheffield are getting a very poor deal from it.
This is a man was never expected to be an MP. A Labour Party which never expected him to be an MP. He is clearly not suited to the role. It is embarrassing to the British politics that he got this far. He has a history of misogynistic, racist homophobic blogs yet still got approved by Her Majesty’s Opposition and was then given the privilege of representing 65,000 people in parliament.
His views do not represent the outward looking tolerant and accepting people of Sheffield Hallam. Parliament deserves better than this. The people of Sheffield deserve better than this.
Cllr The Lord Scriven is a Liberal Democrat peer and a former leader of Sheffield City Council.
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