An investigation is being urged into MP James McMurdock over his “use of social media to apparently facilitate racial abuse” against Sky News political correspondent Mhari Aurora.
Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty has written to the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, over the matter.
Mr McMurdock was previously a Reform UK MP, but suspended himself from Nigel Farage’s party after allegations emerged over COVID loans he claimed. There was controversy over his selection as a Reform candidate after it emerged he was jailed in 2006 for assaulting his then-girlfriend.
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In his letter shared on social media, Mr Obese-Jecty outlined how Mr McMurdock posted the single letter “N” under an X post that was critical of Aurora.
Mr Obese-Jecty explains the concept of an “N-Tower”, saying it “is a means of using a racial slur against an individual on an online platform whilst circumventing moderation that would remove racially abusive content”.
“The practice involves spelling out a racial slur vertically with each individual posting a single letter of the word in order to spell it vertically.”
In this case, the slur was the n-word, with the letters appearing in subsequent posts under Mr McMurdock’s first on X over roughly 30 minutes.
Mr McMurdock later appears to have deleted his post, Mr Obese-Jecty says.
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Mr McMurdock appeared to deny he made the post, sharing a screenshot of X’s AI assistant Grok claiming he never posted the letter N, based on a screenshot of the N-Tower. Grok is a large language model, which is known to be inaccurate.
He added that Mr Obese-Jecty’s “complaint regarding the alleged posting of a single letter is beyond ridiculous”.
Mr McMurdock then claimed he believed the Conservative MP had broken the law by “writing the N-word in full” – saying this was “offensive, indecent and obscene”.
In his letter, Mr Obese-Jecty tells the commissioner he believes what happens breaches the Commons code – specifically that “members shall never undertake any action which would cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole, or of its members generally”.
He also says the actions “reflect a lack of adherence” to the seven principles of public life.
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Mr Obese-Jecty says by “deleting the post without challenging the subsequent spelling” that was started by him, Mr McMurdock showed a “failure to challenge poor behaviour” and “absence of moral courage”.
He calls on the commissioner to ask Mr McMurdock to clarify what his intentions were with the original post, and to share his archive of social media posts.
Mr Obese-Jecty adds: “Having repeatedly experienced this specific type of online racial abuse myself I am horrified that a fellow member of parliament would apparently see this as a legitimate means of challenging a Westminster lobby journalist in a public forum.
“I sincerely hope that there is a coherent and believable explanation for this horrendous action.”
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The Conservative MP posted the letter on social media, saying: “There should be no place in Parliament for those who use their position to target, and attempt to intimidate, a free press.
“I welcome a clear and credible explanation from James McMurdock that illustrates how his apparent part in this unacceptable abuse was a misunderstanding and would encourage him to condemn this type of abuse in the strongest possible terms.”
