Reform MP James McMurdock has given up the whip over allegations against him related to business propriety, the party says.
Chief whip Lee Anderson said McMurdock, MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, “removed the party whip from himself” pending an investigation into allegations since published by the Sunday Times.
“At Reform UK we take these matters very seriously and James has agreed to cooperate in full with any investigation,” Anderson said.
The party will not be commenting further, he added.
The BBC has approached McMurdock for comment.
Anderson said the allegations relate to business propriety during the pandemic, before McMurdock became an MP last year.
He won the seat by 98 votes, beating Labour into second place, and taking the seat from the Conservatives.
A since-deleted profile published on Reform’s website quoted McMurdock as saying he worked in business prior to standing for the party, including at the banks Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers.
McMurdock is the second of the five Reform MPs elected in 2024 who have since lost the party whip, after Rupert Lowe was suspended in March.
That came after the party alleged the Great Yarmouth MP had made “threats of physical violence” against then-chairman Zia Yusuf.
The Crown Prosecution Service later said Lowe would not face criminal charges over the claims, which he called “false” and a “brutal smear campaign”. He now sits in the Commons as an independent.
Reform’s Sarah Ponchin won the Runcorn by-election in May, taking the party’s Commons cohort back to five.
However, McMurdock quitting the party whip means Reform now has four sitting MPs.