Second Labour MP apologises over WhatsApp comments

A second Labour MP has apologised for comments made in a WhatsApp chat, after Andrew Gwynne was sacked as a minister over messages he sent to the same group.

Burnley MP Oliver Ryan said in a statement that comments he made in the group “were completely unacceptable” and he regretted “not speaking out at the time”.

Fellow MP Gwynne was sacked as health minister on Saturday after the Mail on Sunday reported he sent a string of offensive and abusive messages in the WhatsApp group, which contained other Labour figures.

A government source told the PA news agency that the party’s chief whip would speak to Ryan “and no action is off the table”.

“I did not see every message, but I accept responsibility for not being more proactive in challenging what was said,” Ryan added.

“I also made some comments myself which I deeply regret and would not make today and for that, I wholeheartedly apologise.”

Ryan said the WhatsApp group, reportedly called Trigger Me Timbers, was created by his “MP and former employer, Andrew Gwynne”.

He said he would co-operate fully with Labour’s investigation, which began after Gwynne’s messages were revealed.

Gwynne was suspended from the party and apologised in a statement on X for any offence caused by the “badly misjudged” comments.

In messages seen by the Mail on Sunday, Gwynne said he hoped a 72-year-old woman would soon be dead after she wrote to her local councillor about bin collections.

The former health minister also reportedly posted sexist comments about Angela Rayner, racist remarks about Labour MP Diane Abbott, and appeared to make light of antisemitism.

Ryan’s participation in the group was reported by the paper the following day.

Following Gwynne’s sacking, a government spokesperson said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was “determined to uphold high standards of those in public office” and “will not hesitate to take action against any minister who fails to meet these standards”.

A Labour spokesperson added: “Swift action will be taken if individuals are found to have breached the high standards expected of them as Labour Party members”.

Ryan, 29, said he was a member of the WhatsApp group between 2019 and early 2022, when he was a councillor on Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council. He was elected for the first time as an MP in July last year.

“Some of the comments made in that group were completely unacceptable, and I fully condemn them,” he added.

“I regret not speaking out at the time, and I recognise that failing to do so was wrong.”

An independent councillor on Tameside Borough Council, Kaleel Khan, said he had made a “hate crime report” to the police on Sunday after constituents contacted him with concerns about some of the messages.

He told the BBC: “What worries me is when you have an elected official mocking women, or mocking black people, Jewish people, and constituents too.”

Khan said he had also written to ask the council to carry out an investigation into the actions of councillors in the WhatsApp group.

“I work with them, I am quite surprised at one or two of them, that they didn’t call it out” he told the BBC, and added: “I am very, very surprised they did not put a stop to it and leave the group.”

Also on Sunday, Conservative shadow cabinet office minister Alex Burghart told Sky News that he questioned whether members of the WhatsApp group called out Gwynne’s remarks at the time.

“That was a big WhatsApp group with a lot of other Labour members – did any of them step in at the time? Did any of them call that out?” he said.

He added that Gwynne’s message about the elderly constituent was “sort of quite a nasty attempt to do down an old person”, and deemed another about someone’s name sounding “too Jewish” as “sinister”.