A Conservative councillor who sits on a religious education committee has been suspended after sharing a string of anti-Muslim rants on Twitter.
Solihull Borough Council’s Jeff Potts has been suspended by his own party’s group.
The decision means he can still attend meetings but as an independent councillor.
There have also been calls for Cllr Potts to resign after he re-tweeted comments made by other users such as: “Deport and repatriate all Muslims from the UK or watch terrorists kill innocent people for generations to come.”
He also retweeted: “You’ve clearly not experienced the Pakistani hospitality, having a daughter raped by men who think she’s ‘white trash’.”
The councillor told a reporter from the Birmingham Mail that his tweets were a “freedom of speech issue”.
Above a tweet dated August 31, “we wish all Muslims a blessed Eid ul-Adha”, Cllr Potts posted: “Why?”
Subscribe to our newsletter and stay updated on the latest news and updates from around the Muslim world!
The inflammatory tweet “UK police covered-up THOUSANDS of girls raped/sold by the religion of peace” resulted in the following response by Cllr Potts: “Is anybody surprised?”
All the tweets have now been deleted.
Cllr Potts has nonchalantly dismissed the controversy when interviewed by Birmingham Mail, stating: “I have no comment on that at all. My public page states I don’t endorse retweets.”
However, he explained that the tweets were shared as a matter of freedom speech but he “certainly did not agree” with those views.
