What has happened to Warrington Conservatives?

The Warrington Conservative Party is not what it used to be. There have been several events that have led to this.

Chairman of Warrington Liberal Democrats Cllr Ryan Bate says: Prior to the election period starting, private messages containing discriminatory language were leaked to the national press. A Co-Chair of the national Conservative Party said "No one should be subject to those abhorrent views. That is why we quickly suspended the individual in question last week when the comments came to light. They are no longer a party member."

There were at least two participants in the conversation where these 'abhorrent views' were exchanged one of whom is the Chair of Warrington Conservatives.

The Conservative Party Co-Chair went on to say "I want to let you know our complaints team is looking into all allegations against Warrington Conservatives." But after nearly three months, the complaints team has not made the result of its investigation public. There has been no proper apology for what was said. The Chair of Warrington Conservatives remains in place, and is still running as a Borough Council candidate.

Deputy Chairman of Warrington Liberal Democrats Cllr Ian Marks adds: This is not an isolated incident. A Conservative candidate in my own ward in Lymm has been found to have tweeted that he had become a registered supporter of the founder of the far-right English Defence League.

That was accepted as an 'isolated misjudgement' by Warrington Conservatives and his candidacy continued. Soon afterwards, a second tweet came to light making extreme discriminatory comments. Only at this stage did the party drop the candidate, though it is too late to remove his name from Borough and Parish ballot papers.

Warrington Conservatives are unwilling to say how many of their candidates or activists were previously candidates for parties with a record of using extreme and discriminatory campaign material. Clearly some of the Warrington Conservatives running in the current election are representative of more extreme right-wing parties than the Conservatives of old. We would hope that traditional Conservatives will reject the change in character of their local party and will cast their votes elsewhere.