MP inundated with racist abuse after online post

An MP says he has been "inundated with racist comments" after he questioned another MP's plans to start an organisation to "change the way Britain is governed".

Huntingdon Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty retweeted independent Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe's post on X announcing the launch of Restore Britain, asking why it cost £20 to join.

Obese-Jecty said as a result he received online "racist comments, pictures comparing me to a monkey" and was told to "return to your ethnic homeland".

The BBC has approached Lowe, who was previously a Reform UK MP, for comment.

Obese-Jecty, a former Army officer who later worked in financial services, won the Cambridgeshire seat in last year's general election.

Businessman Lowe, a former Southampton Football Club chairman, won his Norfolk seat last year, initially for Reform UK, but has been sitting as an independent since March.

He launched Restore Britain on Monday, saying it was "a movement for those who believe that we need to fundamentally change the way Britain is governed".

"This is not a political party, but a fundamentally different way of doing things," he said.

People wishing to join the membership organisation were asked to pay a £20 annual subscription.

Obese-Jecty said he had been "absolutely inundated with racist comments" after he questioned the fee.

"I got called an Uncle Tom, which is a race traitor, I was told I should be deported back to my home country, [and] that foreigners should be banned from British politics," he said.

"It went on and on and this is sadly par for the course from certain very online sections of our political commentary... it's something I notice is getting increasingly worse and I get targeted from all sides of the political spectrum."

Obese-Jecty said he raised the comments directly with the Great Yarmouth MP when they met in the House of Commons' tearoom.

He said he told Lowe: "I was very disappointed about the racist abuse I'd received from people who purport to be your supporters.

"[Lowe] very much shrugged his shoulders at it and said, 'Well that's not down to me'."

The Huntingdon MP said this was particularly disappointing as one of the surprises of his first year in Parliament was "the amount of collegiate work that goes on around the House of Commons".

"It was disappointing that that cross-party bonhomie doesn't extend to everybody," he added.

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