Glasgow councillor cleared over ‘we hate the United Kingdom too’ Eurovision Tweet & More News Here

Rhiannon Spear, who stood down as a councillor this month due to the “toxic atmosphere in politics”, was cleared by the Standards Commission for Scotland after being reported for tweeting: “It’s ok Europe, we hate the United Kingdom too. Love Scotland. (Scottish flag emoji) #Eurovision” (coronary heart emoji).” throughout the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest.

The tweet was created after the UK scored “nil” factors in the competitors however sparked an offended backlash, with Labour and Conservative councillors amongst these to criticise her. Conservative councillor Thomas Kerr stated it confirmed the “true face of nationalism [is] just as vile as any other”.

Ms Spear stated each she and her household had suffered “abhorrent” abuse and threats on-line over the publish, which additionally noticed her deactivate her twitter account.

Ms Spear was additionally investigated over a second tweet posted final yr, which stated: “The UK has a billionaire chancellor who won’t give NHS staff a fair pay rise during a global pandemic + a racist Prime Minister who’s more interested in lining the pockets of his Tory donors than feeding hungry children”.

Both tweets had been reported to the Standards Commission for Scotland which confirmed the former councillor was protected by the enhanced proper to freedom of expression below Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

In each instances the appearing Ethical Standards Commissioner (ESC) stated that Ms Spear may have been “perceived to have been acting as a councillor when posting these comments and, therefore, the Code applied.

But the former politician said she had posted her comment during the announcement of the results, where the UK received zero (or nil points), and at a time when many were making similar jokes about the UK (as a country) and its place in the world.

She said she deliberately mirrored language from a film about Eurovision where someone had said that everyone hates the UK. She said her use of the word “hate” was on this context and was an “exaggerated joke”.

The ESC concluded that it was of the view that, on the face of it, it was not clear that there had been such a breach of the Councillor’s Code of Conduct.

Ms Spear additionally advised the commissioner responding to the grievance about Mr Johnston that she used the time period “Prime Minister” in the publish context intentionally to offer the tweet a political context. She argued that many individuals think about the Prime Minister to be racist and he or she was not the solely politician or particular person to make use of that time period about him.

By referencing written newspaper columns the place Boris Johnston known as individuals from Africa as “Piccaninnies” with “Watermelon Smiles” the former councillor famous that the PM had additionally referred to younger individuals having an “almost Nigerian interest in money” and had used the phrases “bank robber” and “letterbox” to explain Muslim ladies who put on a burqa.

The Standards Commission famous that whereas it was obvious from the grievance {that a} member of the public had been offended by tweet, the ESC got here to the view that there was no proof to recommend that the remark was supposed to harass, alarm, or misery and, subsequently, thought-about that it will additionally not quantity to hate speech.

Ms Spear has been approached for remark.