THE LEADER of Swindon Borough Council has accused councillors from the Labour group of sharing 'racist and abusive' social media responses.

This comes in response to a Labour council candidate's proposal to introduce a charter to make community pages on social media fairer by ensuring councillors from one political party don't have a monopoly in the administration.

Read More: 'Swindon community Facebook groups silence opposing voices'

Council leader David Renard, said: "We encourage everyone to 'debate not hate', and are more concerned about the racist and abusive social media messages which Labour councillors are liking, and spreading across their groups, even in the last seven days.

"We don't believe that kind of gutter politics has any place in any community group."

Coun Renard's comments reference one incident where fellow councillor Sean Wilson, who represents Lydiard and Freshbrook, liked a Tweet responding to a picture of Swindon Conservatives leafleting that said "The smell of gammon sizzling in the warm spring sunshine."

Another example was that several Labour-rooted Twitter accounts are following a Twitter user who has "Far Left. Guillotine supporter" in their profile bio. 

Cabinet member for organisational excellence, Dale Heenan added: "Last week, a Labour Councillor liked a racist tweet which refers to skin colour and no-one would accept such a thing if it was a group of Goan, Indian or African men in a photo.

"A Labour council candidate has posted that debates on immigration should "ban calling France a safe country", and the leader of the opposition liked messages calling Swindon a S*hole. These racist, abusive or plainly inappropriate messages are not acceptable to anyone."

Leader of the Labour group, Jim Robbins has fired back at the Conservative council, accusing them of not wanting to enter into a sensible discussion on the topic.

“We’re really disappointed but sadly not surprised to see Dale take his usual confrontational approach. Members of the Labour Party hitting the like button on some tweets that were clearly jokes is hardly a reason for the Conservatives to not want to enter into a sensible discussion about social media in the town," he said.

"It’s no wonder the Local Government Association’s recent peer review called the Conservative administration out on their poor record of engagement if this is the sort of excuse they use to avoid discussions

"We’ll happily remain open to having a grown-up conversation about social media whenever the Conservatives are ready for it and can move beyond their confected anger for purely political reasons.”