Kentish Express Ashford & District
Tory councillor blamed terror attack on Labour
Ashford county councillor Jim Wedgbury suggested last week’s terror attack in London was fault of the Labour party A Conservative county councillor for Ashford has been suspended from the party after suggesting the terror attack in London was Labour’s fault.
Cllr Jim Wedgbury, who is Kent county councillor for Ashford Central, posted a tweet responding to one by the commentator and journalist Julie Hartley-Brewer.
She described the terror attack and said: “This is the country we now live in.”
Cllr Wedgbury, who is also a borough councillor for Park Farm South ward, replied: “The Labour party are to blame.”
He posted his tweet at 6.05pm, just hours after Khalid Masood launched his attacks in Westminster that killed three members of the public, police officer Keith Palmer, 48, who Masood brutally stabbed to death, and left 50 injured.
Cllr Wedgbury has now been suspended from the party by the Ashford Conservative Association, pending a full inquiry. It means he will not be able to stand as a candidate in the forthcoming Kent County Council election.
He has also had the whip removed at Ashford council by Tory leader Cllr Gerry Clarkson, meaning he will have to sit as an independent.
Cllr Wedgbury’s post drew a quick response from a fellow Ashford councillor, Neil Bell, who said: “Jim, please delete your tweet immediately.”
Another Tory Ashford councillor, Graham Galpin, posted: “I have to disassociate myself from this statement.”
Labour councillor Brendan Chilton said that the tweet was “appalling” and deserved expulsion from the party and “de-selection as a minimum”.
Mr Wedgbury has now deleted the tweet and said: “I admit I made a mistake and reacted in the heat of the moment.”
He was stressed over the incident because his mother was a casualty in an IRA bomb blast in Eltham, London, in the 1980s. But he said Labour should expel “anyone who has failed to condemn all terrorist attacks”.
Cllr Wedgbury, a retired firefighter, was first elected to the county council in 2005.
He had been due to stand for a fourth term but the party is now searching for a replacement.
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