Rosemary Carroll, was suspended from the party in June after making a Facebook post comparing an Asian to a dog (Picture: Pendle Labour)

Tories are under pressure to investigate after a councillor rejoined the party ‘while votes were being counted’ during last week’s local election, which gave the party overall control of a council.

Rosemary Carroll was suspended from the party in June last year and sent on diversity training after sharing a racist Facebook post comparing an Asian person to a dog.

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She was reinstated as a conservative councillor on Friday, a move which allowed the Tories to gain control of Pendle Council in Lancashire by one seat.

Pendle would have been a hung council but with Ms Carroll moving from an independent candidate to a conservative late in the day, the political balance is now Conservatives, 25 seats, Labour 15 seats, Liberal Democrats nine seats.




Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said it was ‘unacceptable’ and has called for her to be suspended again.

Conservative party chairman Brandon Lewis said he would ‘have a look’ at the case but said the matter had already been reviewed locally and Ms Carroll had been disciplined.

The offending post made by Ms Carroll, a former Mayor (Picture: Facebook)

Ms Carroll, a former mayor of Pendle who represents the Earby ward, last year claimed she shared the post by accident when trying to delete it.

It was deemed both racist and offensive to people on benefits, and led to leader of Pendle Council Cllr Mohammed Iqbal telling Metro.co.uk: ‘Her position is untenable.

‘As far as I’m concerned, the only resolution is for her to resign.’

Today, business secretary Greg Clark told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show: ‘I haven’t seen [the post] but I’ve read reports of it and it seems to me that if they are the views of this person, she has no place in the Conservative Party.

‘I’m sure the party authorities will have to investigate that.’

Secretary Greg Clark said such views were incompatible with the Conservative Party.(Picture: PA)

He added: ‘If they are her views, then they’re incompatible with the Conservative Party. But it is for the authorities, my party authorities, to investigate that.’

Mr McDonnell, meanwhile, told Marr he would be visiting Pendle on Sunday in the wake of the issue.

‘To have the Conservative Party take control of the council by reinstating a councillor who used the foulest racist joke is unacceptable,’ he said.

‘I want Theresa May to say now to Brandon Lewis, who congratulated those councillors, first of all to apologise and suspend that councillor again. It’s unacceptable.’

Appearing on Sky’s Ridge On Sunday, Mr Lewis accused Labour of taking an ‘ironic and hypocritical’ position, given Ms Carroll’s punishment had been endorsed by the Labour-run council, which was supported by the BNP when the incident took place.

Mr Lewis said: ‘Her position is it was an accident. She was suspended, she’s been through diversity training. The punishment she had was endorsed by the Labour Party and the BNP, who supported them on that council at the time.



‘So we need to be very clear about what the facts are. But it is something that I am going to be having a look at, because we’ve been very clear from the beginning.

‘In our party, if we have an issue come up, as we have done over the last few months, when it comes up, we won’t do what the Labour Party does and pretend it doesn’t exist. We will deal with it.’

Ms Carroll was suspended for three months in June 2017 over the incident.

After the suspension expired, she continued to sit as an independent councillor for the Earby ward.

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