Last week, the Tories reinstated councillor Rosemary Carroll, suspended after the SKWAWKBOX exclusively revealed she had shared a vile racist ‘joke’ on Facebook, in order to gain control of Pendle council and put a better gloss on its local election results.
Ms Carroll was reinstated on the spot when the Tories realised that without her in the party Pendle would be a hung council and they could seize control.
The move caused considerable outrage, with Labour’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell promoting a petition on his Twitter account to expel Ms Carroll from the Conservative party.
The excuse of Tory chair Brandon Lewis for the decision was that Ms Carroll had completed awareness training and had only meant to delete the post instead of sharing it – a claim also made by Ms Carroll herself to the Lancashire Evening Telegraph the day after her suspension following the SKWAWKBOX exclusive.
Once again, the Tories are pushing information as true that has already been discredited.
In August last year, the issue of the ‘joke’ was investigated as a potential breach of Pendle councillors’ code of conduct by the council’s politically-neutral Monitoring Officer, Philip Mousdale.
Mousdale’s report made stark reading – and dismissed the claim that it was shared accidentally:
The report also mentions that:
sharing a post requires two clicks it requires some conscious effort and is not likely to be done accidentally.
Many people are calling for Ms Carroll’s immediate and permanent expulsion – including almost six thousand people so far who have signed the petition for her to be expelled if she will not resign.
But the even greater shame is on the Tory party, which was cynically – and without apparent hesitation, since it was done almost immediately the Pendle ‘no overall control’ result was declared – prepared to reinstate a councillor suspended for a vile racist joke in order to control a council and gain a propaganda point.
Albeit one that has hugely backfired.
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“She says she had never heard of Sean Wood and is unsure how the post appeared on her page. She says she is not a regular user of Facebook and is not very familiar with how to use it. She wondered whether her security settings were correct and mentioned it being hacked some months previously. She says that when she mistakenly posted it, it did not appear on her husband’s or a councillor colleague’s Facebook pages which she would have expected. She has since terminated her Facebook account.” Lancashire Evening Telegraph on 30th June.
Clearly she doesn’t understand Facebook.
She must have friended this person or someone she knew shared his post. Unfortunately by deleting her facebook profile she has removed all evidence she could have used in her defence.
https://www.pendle.gov.uk/download/meetings/id/22085/item_3_-_minutes_of_last_meeting minutes from 08/05/18
5. PUBLIC QUESTION TIME
A resident from Barnoldswick asked if the Committee agreed that the recent reinstatement of Councillor Carroll was a disgrace.
The Chairman explained that the reinstatement of Councillor Carroll was a decision made by the Conservative party. Full Council in October 2017 had suspended her membership of all Committees except the area committee for 12 months. The area committee could only deal with local issues, and this matter did not qualify as business for the meeting.