Stockport councillor Alanna Vine suspended in racist retweet probe

The councillor has served for 11 years on Stockport Council

A councillor has been suspended for allegedly sharing tweets claiming mosques were hiding "secret arsenals" and immigration was "cultural suicide".

The Conservative Party is investigating Alanna Vine, councillor for Bramhall North, in Stockport.

Ms Vine declined to comment on her suspension when contacted by the BBC.

Stockport Council's Conservative group confirmed it had initiated disciplinary procedures against the councillor after a recent complaint.

A statement from the group read: "The Conservative Party takes complaints of this nature extremely seriously."

The group said it would be making no further comment until the investigation had concluded.

Among the most contentious retweets in question was a post reading: "How many mosques have secret arsenals? Just waiting for when our troops are elsewhere in the world."

Former magistrate

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said Ms Vine appeared to have undone a retweet she had made and it no longer appeared on her timeline.

Another tweet described an area of Manchester "now like being in Somalia".

The post added: "Hundreds of Somalian 'asylum seekers' were placed there many years ago. There are thousands of them. Seeing is believing, they live no differently than they did in Somalia."

Another tweet claimed population growth and rates of migration between 2011 and 2021 were "cultural suicide".

Ms Vine has represented Bramhall North since 2011, having previously been the northern regional director of the World Wide Fund for Nature, where she worked for more than 10 years.

After leaving WWF she trained and became a magistrate for several years.

She also sits on the Campaign Task Force for climate change in Stockport and is a member of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation.