Reform MP who assaulted girlfriend resigns whip over business impropriety claims

A Reform UK MP has resigned the party whip pending an investigation into allegations of business impropriety before he was elected, the party’s chief whip has said.

- ARCHIE MITCHELL

James McMurdock will sit as an independent while a probe takes place over the allegations, which he said are likely to emerge in the press this weekend. Reform’s chief whip Lee Anderson said: “At Reform UK, we take these matters very seriously and James has agreed to cooperate in full with any investigation.”

It quickly emerged that Mr McMurdock had suspended himself after The Sunday Times approached him with allegations that he borrowed £70,000 under the government’s Bounce Back loans scheme during the pandemic in 2020. The newspaper reported that he did so through two companies he owned, JAM Financial Limited and Gym Live Health and Fitness Limited.

The former had no employees and negligible assets, it said, and took out a £50,000 loan in 2020, the maximum amount available. It would have had to have at least £200,000 in turnover to receive the loan. He resigned as a director and transferred his shares to his mother in 2021, the Times reported.

The second company was dormant until 2020, but in 2021 borrowed £20,000 under the scheme, which would have required a turnover of £100,000. Mr McMurdock may have also fallen foul of parliamentary rules by not declaring his directorships of the companies in his register of interests.

Commenting on the story, Mr McMurdock told the Times to “be very, very careful” and said “a technical expert” would be needed to make sense of the matters, but did not say why he took out the loans.