James McMurdock investigated over alleged racial abuse on X

A former Reform UK MP is under investigation over alleged racial abuse against a Sky News journalist.

James McMurdock, who represents South Basildon and East Thurrock in Essex, is accused of starting a chain of posts on X that spelled out a racial slur.

A spokesman for McMurdock told the BBC it was “patently obvious to everyone apart from the tofu eating wokerati” that what he posted on X “was a typo”.

The Parliamentary standards commissioner is due to rule whether he breached the House of Commons code of conduct.

It is investigating a potential violation of rule 11, defined as “actions causing significant damage to the reputation” to the House of Commons or its MPs.

McMurdock was elected for Reform UK in July 2024, but suspended himself after allegations emerged over loans he claimed during the pandemic and now sits as an independent MP.

Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty reported McMurdock to the standards commissioner, after it appeared McMurdock posted the letter “N” under an X post that was critical of Sky News political correspondent Mhari Aurora on 4 August.

This was described by the Huntingdon MP as “a means of using a racial slur against an individual on an online platform whilst circumventing moderation”.

He added: “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.”

Other users subsequently posted single letters to spell out the slur.

McMurdock has accused Obese-Jecty of having “nothing better to do”.

Obese-Jecty accused McMurdock of deleting his post, saying it “showed a “failure to challenge poor behaviour” and “absence of moral courage”.

“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,” he said.

“I sincerely hope that there is a coherent and believable explanation for this horrendous action.”

In response at the time, McMurdock shared a screenshot of Grok, the AI assistant on X, claiming he never posted the letter N.

Grok is a chatbot software that X owner Elon Musk has suggested is liable to errors, saying it is “too compliant to user prompts”.

McMurdock also said of Obese-Jecty: “Ben has tried to use me to enhance his status all year. It is pathetic.”

A spokesman for the MP said: “As is patently obvious to everyone apart from the tofu-eating wokerati, this was a typo.

“We look forward [to] the commissioner closing out the case.

“The reason people have so little faith in Westminster is that it is full of too many lightweight people who care more about social media reactions than improving the lives of the British people.”