An aide of former Labour MP Jared O’Mara has publicly resigned on his Twitter account in a furious tirade, branding his former boss a “selfish, degenerate p****”.
Gareth Arnold, a former member of the independent MP’s communications team, wrote on Twitter that Mr O’Mara was the “most morally bankrupt person I have ever met”.
“Sheffield Hallam deserves so much better than you,” he wrote. “You have wasted opportunities which people dare not to even dream of.”
He added: “Consider this my resignation,", urging his former boss to "call a by-election".
On his own Twitter account, Mr Arnold wrote: “I am pretty sure Jared is asleep because he hasn’t been in for a few weeks and hadn’t replied to my WhatsApp... oh crumbs.”
He added: “He has just messaged me and he pays that little attention to anything that he’s not even seen the tweet all of his constituents have. Unbelievable.”
Addressing the string of tweets, he told BBC 5 Live that he had been working for Mr O'Mara for eight weeks but had known him "for absolutely years".
He also admitted that "from the outside it looks like a really horrible thing to do", but added: "We're left with a situation where there's people in Sheffield Hallam who are not being represented, there are people who are waiting on their immigration status, there are people who are not getting houses, there are people having their benefits stopped and all these things stopped just because he's not prepared to do his job properly.
"Yes it was a ridiculous statement but it's the one thing I think might motivate change."
It comes after Mr O’Mara, who won the Sheffield Hallam seat from Nick Clegg in 2017, quit the Labour Party after being suspended following a string of misogynistic and homophobic comments he made online.
The 37-year-old MP has been an Independent MP since resigning from Labour in 2018.
Last week, Mr O’Mara said he intends to stand for election despite criticism of his voting record.
In April, theYorkshire Post reported that he had shut down his office for a month after all of his staff either quit or were fired.
The independent MP was allegedly unable to hold constituency surgeries or respond to phone calls or correspondence for around four weeks.
The Independent has contacted Mr O’Mara and Mr Arnold for comment.
