A TORY MP has been accused of treating constituents with contempt by not allowing political debate on his Facebook page.

Richard Holden, who represents North West Durham, threatened legal action against people who make defamatory posts on his social media account.

He also said he would be banning people for making ‘irrelevant’ points or if they wrote anything he deemed rude.

The Conservative MP, who replaced Laura Pidcock in the General Election, said Labour Party activists were relentlessly targeting him to undermine his work.

Now North West Durham Labour has hit back and said the claims are ‘ludicrous’.

The group said: “We believe that the current MP for North West Durham, Richard Holden, is trying to close down debate on his social media page and is treating his electorate with contempt.

“The suggestion that Mr Holden makes, that we as the local Labour Party have had an organised campaign against him, is simply ludicrous.

“Since the coronavirus pandemic hit, our focus has been on assisting the most vulnerable in our communities.

“We have been raising money to donate to local food banks and we’ve helped hundreds of local residents with food shopping, picking up prescriptions and such, through our coronavirus community assistance scheme, which was one of the first of its kind in the whole of the UK.

“Any individuals who have interacted with Mr Holden’s social media pages have done so as constituents of North West Durham and it is our belief that they have done so in a reasonable manner.

“It is in fact Mr Holden who has been providing rude and patronising responses to his constituents as seen by his comments on a number of his Facebook statuses.

“Indeed, only last week, Mr Holden failed to condemn racist comments on his page.

“As an opposition party, we will continue to hold the MP for North West Durham to account on issues like this as is expected from an opposition party.

“We hope that in future, rather than constantly focus on what the local Labour Party is doing, Mr Holden will spend more of his time and energy focusing on delivering the promises he made to the electorate at the 2019 general election as we are yet to see any evidence of this, which is quite frankly disappointing considering his party is actually in government.”

Mr Holden has now hit back with his own broadside.

He said: "I understand the local Labour Party are still in shock about having lost the election.  

"For years, many Labour members have seemed more interested in social signalling to each other online and more recently in trolling me than in doing anything to deliver real positive change for the communities they’ve taken for granted for decades.

“On local representation, one fact stands out above all others. In the last decade Shotley Bridge Hospital has been mentioned five times in Parliament. Three of them have been in the last six months since I was elected.

“My first pledge was to get Brexit done. I’ve already delivered. 

"It’s clear I’m actually committed to delivering transport improvements as well as a replacement for Shotley Bridge. 

"I’ve already voted for more funding for local schools, more local police and our NHS and have been incredibly active in our community during Coronavirus.

"After six months, most people I speak to think I’ve hit the ground running and am a breath of fresh air after years of stagnation under Labour.

“If Labour had a record to be proud in North West Durham they’d shout about it after being in power here for 100 years. But they haven’t.

"All they’ve got let is to attack me for working hard for my constituents.

"It’s pathetic.”