O’Mara considering standing down as MP

AN MP who has autism and cerebral palsy has said he is considering quitting Parliament because it is so difficult to be disabled and work in the House of Commons.

Jared O’Mara said he was “battle-worn” after a year in which he served a suspension from Labour for offensive comments, before quitting the party in July.

The Sheffield Hallam MP, who faced criticism for being largely absent from the Commons during his suspension after being declared long-term sick, last month revealed he cannot attend Prime Minister’s Questions because of the heckling and “aggression”.

If the Equality Act applied to Parliament, reasonable adjustments would be made for disabled people like him, he said.

But instead he said he feels he has been “led up the garden path” and would not have stood for Parliament if he had known how difficult it would be for him to work in the Commons.

And his whole experience since a high point of ousting former Deputy Prime Minister Sir Nick Clegg in the June 2017 snap election has left him questioning his future in Parliament. Mr O’Mara told The Yorkshire

Post: “If the election wasn’t tomorrow I wouldn’t be standing again but I can’t predict what I’m going to do in the future.

“It could go on until 2022 and they call it in spring 2022, and I don’t know what I’m going to be feeling then so I don’t want to make any false promises and say I’m definitely going to stand down when I might change my mind.

“But certainly at this stage I don’t feel like I want to. I just feel really battle-worn, and I’ve had a lot taken out of me and I’m still not entirely 100 per cent, but I’m well enough to work.”