Just how accountable are we for the things we have said on the Internet throughout our lives? Jared O’Mara, a Labour MP, has quit his position on the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee as a result of homophobic remarks he made online before he was elected to parliament. O’Mara is the MP for Sheffield Hallam, he took the seat from former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in this year’s snap general election.
The resignation came about after posts made by O’Mara on music website Drowned in Sound back in 2004 were unearthed by political gossip website Guido Fawkes. On the website O’Mara said Michelle McManus only won Pop Idol ‘because she was fat’, he also commented that it would be funny if jazz musician Jamie Cullum was ‘sodomised with his own piano’. Among the other things O’Mara had posted online were homophobic references to ‘fudge-packing’ and ‘poofters’. He also invited members of Girls Aloud to an orgy.
At 36 years old, O’Mara belongs to a generation who grew up in the nascent days of the internet, back when you still had to dial up to get online but, nonetheless, he firmly belongs to the first cohort of true digital natives. As a result, some have pointed out that many young people say stupid things when they are in their teens and early twenties and shouldn’t necessarily be held accountable for them.
Labour MP Angela Rayner was among them, defending O’Mara on the grounds that he had changed his views. ‘I think it’s important to recognise in a social media age that young people do put views and jokes and things that are absolutely distasteful and disgusting online and that they are there forever’ she said to Sky News.
However, on BBC Newsnight last night political journalist Marie Le Conte said that while it is ‘fine to be an idiot when you’re 15 or 16, at 20-21 you’re an adult’. Le Conte said she didn’t necessarily think O’Mara should stand down as an MP but argued that it was quite right that he had resigned from the Women and Equalities Committee. Alongside her, journalist Kate Maltby said there was no question that O’Mara should have stepped down from the committee, a body which is intended to ‘represent the British people’ as we ‘face up to serious issues of discrimination’, adding that it was ‘impossible for us to have faith in the Women and Equalities Committee’ while it ‘holds people like Jared O’Mara and…Philip Davies’.
O’Mara has issued a statement in which he said he wanted to remain on the Women and Equalities Committee so that he could continue to ‘work to confront misogyny’. Of his previous remarks, he said ‘I understand why they are offensive and sincerely apologise for my use of such unacceptable language…I made the comments as a young man, at a particularly difficult time in my life, but that is no excuse’. He added that his views have changed hugely in the 15 years since ‘I have learned about inequalities of power and how violent language perpetuates them’, he said.
Since his resignation, O’Mara has given an interview to Huck Magazine in which he has apologised but affirmed that he will not be standing down as an MP. He said ‘the culture I grew up in was very different…it was lad culture and football and all that. I got swept up with it and it warped my mindset. It turned me into a bitter and spiteful person if I’m being honest’.
Following the revelations yesterday, a woman appeared on BBC’s Daily Politics Programme today and said that she had been verbally abused by O’Mara in a nightclub shortly before he was elected in June.
When asked by presenter Jo Coburn what O’Mara has said to her she said:
‘Obviously, some of the things aren't broadcast-able, but there were some transphobic slurs in there.’
‘He called me an ugly bitch.’
Coburn then asked her what her response was at the time, she said: ‘I just thought wow, he's not a very nice man and kind of forgot about it.’ But, once she realised he was her MP she said she felt she ‘had to let people know what he was like…what had happened…and say this is the guy that’s representing you.’
On the one hand, it’s refreshing that someone would apologise and reflect openly about how lad culture influenced them growing up. On the other, is it ever excusable to make homophobic and sexist remarks as an adult? Actions speak louder than words, time will tell whether O’Mara is committed to promoting change and being a positive role model.
That remains to be seen, however.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.