In preparation for the local elections tomorrow, the mainstream media have spent the last few weeks doing their level best to make it appear as if racism and abuse is a thing perpetrated solely by members of the Labour Party and their supporters.
However, despite the wall-to-wall coverage from the likes of the BBC of Labour’s struggles with anti-Semitism, the right-wing press has been extremely reluctant to report the sheer scale of racism and abuse emerging from the Conservative Party.
Following former Tory Minister Baroness Warsi exposing the fact that there are now “weekly occurrences of Islamophobic incidents” within the Conservative Party, the Muslim Council of Britain demanded that the Tories begin an inquiry into the racism epidemic engulfing the party – a demand which the Tories have flat-out ignored.
Furthermore, despite the astonishing scale of racism emanating from members of the Tory Party, and the subsequent demands of the biggest mainstream Islamic organisation in the country for an investigation into it, the BBC and the right-wing media have, for whatever reason, completely failed to bother reporting the story.
And yes, Labour’s inquiry into anti-Semitism was front-page news on the BBC and in virtually every right-wing newspaper across the country for weeks – so why isn’t the Tories’ desperate struggle with an infinitely larger problem of racism and abuse in their own party?
Indeed, this really isn’t just a case of Evolve crying bias or exaggerating – the figures really do speak for themselves.
An astonishing 18 Conservative Councillors and Council candidates have been suspended from the Tory party within the last month alone for alleged racism and abuse.
And just to emphasise: these 18 suspensions don’t even include Tory Party members – these were elected Tory politicians and prospective Council candidates. The scale of the Tories’ problem is truly undeniable. Yet the party have no plans for an inquiry, and are being given free-reign to ignore calls from the biggest Islamic group in the country thanks to the mainstream media’s pitiful failure to report the truly despicable scale of the Tories’ racism problem.
Courtesy of the ever-brilliant Matt Thomas on Twitter, here is a full list of the 18 Tory Councillors and Candidates who have been suspended for racism or abuse in the last 30 days alone:
Tory Council Candidate Anthony Mullen – Sunderland – Suspended for allegedly “Vile and Abysmal Tweets”
Tory Council Candidate Geroge Stoakley – Cambridgeshire – Suspended for allegedly anti-Semitic, sexist and abusive tweets
Tory Council Candidate Matthew Clarke – Stevenage – Suspended for allegedly numerous anti-Semitic, h*mophobic and misogynistic comments
Tory Council Candidate Darren Harrison – Watford – Suspended for allegedly having links to Neo-Nazis and the EDL
Tory Candidate Alexander van Terheyden – Hackney – Suspended for allegedly supporting an Anti-Muslim Hate Group and attending a rally with the neo-Nazi former EDL leader
Tory Council Candidate Ian Robinson – Netherton – Suspended for alleged racist and xenophobic Facebook posts
Tory Councillor Pete Handley – Oxford – Suspended for allegedly calling a colleague a “cripple”
Conservative Councillor Mike Payne – Calderdale – Suspended for allegedly calling Muslims “parasites” who “live off the state and breed like rabbits”
Tory Council Candidate Patrick O’Sullivan – Hammersmith – Accused of Assaulting a Fellow Activist
Tory Council Candidate Nick Sundin – Newcastle – Suspended for alleged anti-Muslim and abusive tweets
Tory Councillor Dominic Boeck – Newbury – Suspended for allegedly mocking transgender people as mentally disordered.
Tory Councillor Geoff Driver – Lancashire – Suspended for alleged corruption and witness intimidation
Tory Council Candidate Kamran Razzaq – Dudley – Suspended after publishing and distributing an official Tory election leaflet claiming his Labour rivals had brought the area hepatitis.
Tory Council Candidate Karen Sunderland – Lewisham – Suspended for alleged Islamophbic tweets
Tory Council Candidate Matt Lynch – Sussex – Suspended for allegedly making false claims to have served in the military
Tory Mayor Peter Lucey – Wokingham – suspended after a slew of ‘Islamaphobic social media posts’ related to racist far-right groups online, including the EDL, came to light.
Tory Council Candidate David Boston – Enfield – Suspended for alleged racist and abusive Facebook posts
Updated List. Conservative Councillors & Candidates Suspended for/Accused of offenses in just the last month. The Tory party is overrun with every kind of nasty individual. pic.twitter.com/kV1ICC3D8T
— Matt Thomas (@Trickyjabs) May 1, 2018
The scale of the Tories’ problem truly is incredible. But what’s even more ridiculous is that the media have attempted to create a reality-reversing narrative that somehow only the Labour Party have a problem with racism and abuse – which clearly isn’t the case.
In fact, the Tories’ problem is infinitely bigger – yet, not only is nobody in the mainstream media calling for a Tory investigation into the problem, the entire media have also brazenly ignored the fact that the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) have demanded an investigation into it.
If the MCB were demanding an investigation into Labour for Islamophobia, you just know the BBC and their allies in the right-wing media would be reporting it in seconds – and it would make headlines for weeks.
[UPDATE: The police have now dropped all charges against Southampton’s Tory Councillor Jeremy Moulton. It also appears that, contrary to information we were given, Mr Moulton was not suspended from the Conservative party during the investigation]
[UPDATE: Evolve Politics have amended our headline to differentiate between those suspended for racism, and those suspended for ‘abuse’ – be it verbal abuse or abuse of power or position.]
[UPDATE: We previously included Tory Council Candidate Thomas Burton in our list. Contrary to our previous suggestion, Mr Burton was not suspended from the party, but he was barred from standing in the election due to an alleged breach of election law]
[UPDATE: We previously included Tory Council Candidate Rob Currie in our list. Contrary to our suggestion, Mr Currie was not suspended over the Facebook post. The Conservative Party insisted that it did not merit anything more serious than a ticking off, saying: “Rob has been very foolish, and I’ve told him to take the post down”.]
