A local Conservative official has been suspended from the party after retweeting a message aimed at the Labour MP Diane Abbott that has been described as racist.

Alan Pearmain, the deputy chairman of the South Ribble Conservative Association and a parish councillor, shared a tweet in December that portrayed Abbott, the shadow home secretary, as an ape wearing lipstick who should be in a zoo.

Pearmain added a comment to the original post reading: “Nice lips kid. But a shade too much rouge.”



A Conservative spokesman said: “His comments are completely unacceptable and he has been suspended from the party, pending an investigation.”



The controversy emerged as it was revealed that a female staff member in Abbott’s team wrote to the Metropolitan police about another “threatening and racist” message sent this week.

Abbott would not comment on the police complaint, which was leaked to the Guardian, but sources confirmed that it had been sent.

The worker claimed that death and rape threats, and offensive messages focusing on race and weight, were now a daily occurrence for the shadow home secretary.

In his Twitter profile, Pearmain describes himself as “positioned slightly to the right of Attila the Hun”. He denied that the tweet, first reported by the Lancashire Evening Post, was racist, when contacted by the Guardian on Thursday morning.

He said: “I’m almost 70, I’ve been asked to apologise on many, many occasions. Sometimes it warrants apologising, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you have to stand up for your principles.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong with the tweet? I thought it was her size and her appearance, nothing to do with colour.”

But councillor Paul Foster, the South Ribble Labour leader, said he was appalled and that Pearmain should be sacked immediately for “wholly unacceptable conduct”.

“If it was one of my Labour councillors there would be strong action taken. We challenge publicly the South Ribble Conservative Association to kick him out instantly.”

A source in Abbott’s office, who was made aware of the message on Wednesday, said it was clearly a racist tweet, and was in fact one of several aimed at the Hackney MP.

They said the intensity of the abuse had risen since Abbott angered some colleagues by missing the first vote on the Brexit bill because of a migraine. However, they said offensive messages were nothing new, as Pearmain’s message showed.

The letter to police was focused on one email this week that described the Hackney MP as a “pathetic useless fat black piece of … pondslime” who ought to be hanged.

The staff member criticised the police for failing to act on a series of previous complaints over death and rape threats despite “growing concern for [Abbott’s] safety”.



“In fact our office has reported many that are either racist, sexist, threatening or all three. Not once, not ever, has there been some sort of result, or have we been told that anyone has been reprimanded,” she wrote.

“I find this confusing and concerning as the offender has often provided an email address and sometimes even a postal address.”

In the letter, the staff member argued that Abbott was one of the most recognised politicians in Britain with a newspaper even publishing her home address. “As you can imagine, this creates growing concern for her safety and the safety of members of her staff who accompany her to various events,” she wrote.



She pointed to the decision to arrest the person who threatened to “Jo Cox” the Conservative MP Anna Soubry – and asked why Abbott’s complaints had not been met with a similar response.

“But things like this are a daily occurrence for us … As the parliamentary police are aware of the situation, I am at a loss as to why it cannot be investigated once we have sent you the source and the time that said abuse was delivered.”

The letter included a link to a website that had collated abusive messages about the MP. The letter also claimed that the abuse had been reinforced by some media coverage, including one publication saying it was “open season on Diane Abbott”.



The Guardian was also sent a note written last year that listed examples of earlier abuse towards the MP.

In a response to a survey, which has not been published, the staffer warned: “To be honest, the incidents are so frequents and subversive – it is impossible to go into exhaustive details.” They cited rape and death threats, offensive sexist and racist epithets, “horrific weight jokes” and “disgusting abuse” about Abbott’s sex life.

The note also claimed that Abbott faced physical abuse, including being pushed around and harassed on public transport.

Pearmain’s message is unusual in that it comes from a local Conservative party official, although the original tweet was from someone whose profile says they are a “patriot and skinhead” supporting Ukip.

South Ribble Conservative Association’s deputy chairman (political) Michael Green had initially defended Pearmain, saying that he had “just commented on the original tweet”, before the national party intervened.

The parish councillor, who is also a school governor, said he had lived in a number of foreign countries and that he has a black relative who was in the US army.

A spokeswoman for the Met police said they had received eight allegations from Abbott’s office since 2015, “in the main of malicious communications”.

“All of the allegations have been recorded, assessed and investigated. The complainant, or representatives, have been briefed on the outcome of every allegation looked at by the MPS at the conclusion of our work.

“Security assessments are offered to all members of parliament – both for home and work addresses – and are optional as to whether or not the advice is taken up.”