Reform UK is a party that competes for attention and is not ashamed of how it gets it.
Scam political support from Elon Musk this week By amplifying Reform UK’s talking points on its X platform, the party has been able to make a splash in the new year ahead of the government.
This month the party has held two conferences in two days and with only a handful of MPs everyone has the opportunity to speak. With one notable exception: Rep. James McMurdock.
Despite being MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, he is not on the East of England conference calendar, and was initially told by Sky Information that he was not planning to attend.
Controversy has surrounded the politician since it was announced that he was imprisoned almost two decades ago for repeatedly kicking his then-girlfriend in 2006 while he was drunk outside a nightclub, something that was not made public when he ran as a candidate for deputy.
When it emerged last July that he had been jailed for attacking someone, he downplayed the incident as a “teenage indiscretion.”
When seen walking around the conference on Saturday, Sky Information asked McMurdock if he regretted that term.
The parliamentarian did not apologize for the phrase and said he had not lied or changed his story.
“I would like to do everything I can to do as little harm as possible to others and at the same time accept that for a moment I was a bad person,” he said.
“I’m doing everything I can to deal with the fact that something really unfortunate has happened.”
Read more from Sky Information:
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The MP also would not say whether the party was aware of his conviction before he became a candidate, but leader Nigel Farage has previously said he was “not vetted”.
McMurdock has not yet been suspended over conflicting accounts of what happened, and the party has not commented on whether it would approve its new vetting system that it says is already in place for new council candidates.
A Labor MP has urged parliament and the government to take Mandatory Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks for any potential parliamentary candidate in the future.
While speaking to Sky Information, McMurdock said he would support such a motion, although no Reform MPs voted for it on an early motion when it was introduced in parliament.
