The leader of Kirklees Council says historic ‘racist’ posts found on her former social media account were not all made by her.
The posts were made on Councillor Sarah Wood’s former Twitter page, but a spokesman for the Reform UK councillor said “many” were not made by her.
This week, several posts attributed to “SarahRileyMusic” which is a Twitter (now X) handle used by Cllr Wood, before the account was deleted, have sparked backlash among some elected members and members of the public on Facebook.
One post from November 10, 2020 links “illegal immigrants” to “single handedly doubling rape crime” in Germany, and another from 2019 says that “illegal migrants” bring “chaos, immorality and disorder”. A further post from 2020 uses an image of the 9/11 attacks with the word “Muslim…” over the top.
On March 30, 2020, a post branded the Covid-19 pandemic, “fake”, and another comment from December 31, 2020 reads: “Long Covid is not a thing. It was made up by the media. Get a grip.”
When the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) put the allegations to Cllr Wood, her spokesman said:
“Many of these posts were not made by Sarah and do not accurately reflect her personal views. Her accounts were accessed and managed by several members of her campaign when she stood as a Brexit Party candidate and were later deleted.”
Several Kirklees councillors have now made Facebook posts about the alleged tweets. One of whom, Cllr Tanisha Bramwell (Kirklees Independents, Dewsbury West), has also made a formal complaint to Kirklees Council. She said: “As a mixed-race woman, a councillor and someone with children in my family from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, I find these posts genuinely frightening.”
She added: “I have children in my family whom I love dearly. Some are mixed race and some have Muslim heritage. They deserve to grow up without being judged or stereotyped because of their background. Even if I were not mixed race, I would find these statements equally abhorrent.”
Councillor Akhtar Kasia (Kirklees Independents, Batley East) took to social media and said: “Sarah Wood, you are the Leader of Kirklees Council. You have a responsibility to represent every resident – Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, people of every background, and those of no faith, whether they voted for you or not.
“How can residents from communities targeted by these remarks have confidence they will be treated fairly? You owe the people of Kirklees an explanation…”
A Kirklees Council spokesperson said: “Kirklees Council has an established Code of Conduct and formal process for considering complaints about the conduct of elected members whilst in office. Any allegations relating to potential breaches of the Code are considered through that process.”
The Leader had previously come under fire from several opposition members for saying that an “important point” was raised in the “implied intent” of an alleged post of fellow Reform councillor, Tracy Clayton, which branded immigrants “third world animals”.
When asked for clarification at a Cabinet meeting earlier this month, the Leader explained that while the language used by Cllr Clayton went further than she personally would have done, she believes that people are “invading our country”.
Councillor Clayton is yet to address her alleged comments.
