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Bob Stewart has surrendered the Conservative whip while he considers launching an appeal against his conviction for a racially aggravated public order offence.
The Beckenham MP has informed chief whip Simon Hart that will give up the Tory whip until a possible appeal of his conviction is resolved, a Government source told the PA news agency.
Mr Stewart was found guilty on Friday of racially abusing an activist by telling him to “go back to Bahrain” during a confrontation in central London last year.
The MP had been attending an event hosted by the Bahraini Embassy when protester Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei shouted: “Bob Stewart, for how much did you sell yourself to the Bahraini regime?”
During a heated exchange, Mr Stewart replied: “Go away, I hate you. You make a lot of fuss. Go back to Bahrain.”
In footage played to the court, he also said “now shut up you stupid man,” adding: “You’re taking money off my country, go away.”
Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring found Mr Stewart guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence but told him he would not be jailed.
He said Mr Stewart would not be jailed and fined the MP £600, with additional legal costs bringing the total to £1,435.
Earlier, Paul Jarvis, prosecuting, told the court that Mr Alwadaei had “felt upset and humiliated by what had taken place”.
He suggested the MP had “demonstrated racial hostility towards Mr Alwadaei”.
Mr Jarvis told the court Mr Stewart later said he “regretted” the comments and that he should have ignored the protester but denies the comments were racist.
The MP, a former British army officer who was stationed in Bahrain in 1969, said: “I am not a racist. He was saying that I was corrupt and that I had taken money. My honour was at stake in front of a large number of ambassadors. It upset me and I thought it was extremely offensive.”
The MP used the phrase “my country” because he “assumed” Alwadaei was from Bahrain, but accepted that the words “this country” would “perhaps have been better”, the court heard.
Mr Stewart is the seventh Tory MP to currently have the whip suspended, three of whom have been accused of sexual misconduct.
It comes after Crispin Blunt had the Conservative whip removed last week and was ordered to stay away from Parliament after he confirmed he had been arrested on suspicion of rape and possession of drugs.
The Tory MP for Reigate said he was “ready to co-operate fully” with a police investigation and was “confident” that he would not be charged.
It came days after Peter Bone, a former Tory minister, was given a six-week suspension from the House of Commons for bullying and sexual misconduct against a member of staff.
An investigation by Parliament’s Independent Expert Panel (IEP) found that Mr Bone exposed his genitals close to an employee’s face in a hotel bathroom during a parliamentary trip to Madrid in 2013.
Mr Bone has denied wrongdoing and claimed the IEP investigation into him “was flawed, procedurally unfair and didn’t comply with its own rules and regulations”.