Wife of British Politician Arrested for Inciting Racial Hatred After Controversial Tweet
The wife of a British politician has been arrested for inciting racial hatred after suggesting rioters should “set fire to all the migrant hotels” in the UK.
Lucie Connolly, a childminder in Northamptonshire, made the inflammatory tweet, including the phrase: “If that makes me racist, so be it.”
Posting on Twitter, Connolly wrote: “Mass deportation now. Set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the b******* for all I care. While you’re at it, take the treacherous government and politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist, so be it.”
The message was posted just hours after the death of three girls, aged six, seven, and nine, at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club in Southport.
The horrific knife rampage sparked a wave of misinformation, fueled by Russian-linked fake news, that spread rapidly online.
Connolly has since deleted her post, blaming it on “a moment of extreme outrage and emotion” when she was acting on “false and malicious” information.
Her husband Raymond, who is vice chair of the committee on adult social care at West Northamptonshire Council, told the BBC that his wife is not racist, stating she looks after “Somalian and Bangladeshi kids.”
Northamptonshire Police confirmed that a 41-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred after reports of a hate crime regarding a social media post.
The online childcare community Childcare.co.uk has since suspended Connolly following the tweet, after allegations emerged that she had an advert on their platform.
This incident follows violent riots across several cities, including Manchester, Liverpool, Plymouth, and Birmingham, after the Southport knife rampage that claimed the lives of three young girls and left many others injured.
Recently, gangs of masked thugs descended on hotels believed to be housing migrants and asylum seekers, setting fire to the buildings and throwing petrol bombs and projectiles at police.
Approached by the BBC, Councillor Connolly defended his wife, saying, “She made one ‘stupid, spur-of-the-moment tweet out of frustration and quickly deleted it.'”
He continued, “She’s a good person and not racist. She cares for Somalian and Bangladeshi children and loves them as if they were her own.”
Responding on social media today, Ms. Connolly said, “I regret and apologize for a recent post I made. Acting on information that I now know to be false and malicious, and in a moment of extreme outrage and emotion, I posted words that I realize were wrong in every way.
“I care deeply about children, and the resemblance between those beautiful children who were so brutally attacked and my own daughter overwhelmed me with horror. However, I should not have expressed that horror in the way I did.
“This has been a valuable lesson for me, realizing how wrong and inaccurate things appearing on social media can be, and I will never react in this way again.”
