Following the Local Elections results today, the Conservative Party have managed to take control of Pendle Council by just one seat after reinstating a Councillor who they had previously suspended for retweeting a racist joke which compared UK benefit claimants to dogs.
Rosemary Carroll, who was the Mayor of Pendle before being suspended by the Tories, retweeted a racist joke last year which read:
“I took my dog to the dole office to see what he was entitled to. The bloke behind the counter said “You idiot, we don’t give benefits to dogs”
I argued “Why not?” He’s brown, he stinks, he’s never worked a day in his life, and he can’t speak a f*cking word of English.
The man replied “the first payment will be Monday” “
Carroll was suspended by the party after the racist post came to light, and it was initially believed that the Tories would not allow Ms Carroll to continue as a Conservative on Pendle Council.
However, according to reports by BBC North West, the Conservative Party has now reinstated Ms Carroll to the party and lifted her suspension, enabling the party to take control of Pendle Council by just a single seat.
Conservatives take control of Pendle Council by one seat after reinstating – this morning – a councillor who was suspended for retweeting a racist joke.
— BBC North West (@BBCNWT) May 4, 2018
Following today’s local election results, Pendle Council had been under No Overall Control, with the Tories winning 24, Labour winning 14, and the Liberal Democrats winning 9 seats.
However, now the Conservative Party have decided to reinstate Ms Carroll to the party, the Tories have been able to take control of the Council by just one seat.
Following Ms Carroll’s reinstatement, she will now reportedly remain in office as a Councillor of the Earby ward of Pendle until 2020.
The Conservative Party’s decision to lift Ms Carroll’s suspension for racism also comes despite the Prime Minister Theresa May choosing to slam Labour for supposedly letting racism go ‘unchallenged’ in the party.
Following the results this morning, Mrs May declared that “People of all faiths have rejected the vile anti-Semitism that has gone unchallenged in the Labour Party for too long”.
"People of all faiths have rejected the vile anti-Semitism that has gone unchallenged in the Labour Party for too long" @theresa_may speaking to Barnet councillors #Election2018 pic.twitter.com/nrXHEPyjXC
— BBC Daily Politics and Sunday Politics (@daily_politics) May 4, 2018
However, just last week the British Council of Muslims called for the Conservative Party to hold an urgent inquiry into Islamophobia in the party following former Tory Minister Baroness Warsi’s exposing that there are now “weekly occurrences of Islamophobic incidents” within the Conservative Party.
Once again it seems that the Tories are more than happy to use politicise racism to use as a weapon in order to bash other political parties, but when it comes to taking firm action against their own members who espouse such racist sentiment, they have once again been allowed to let them off the hook.
