David Rowan, who served on Kirklees council, appears to have said ‘Hang the Dwarf’ on social media in response to a post about John Bercow in 2019, Hope Not Hate’s research showed
A Reform UK councillor has been suspended after allegedly posting about the hanging of former Commons Speaker John Bercow on social media.
David Rowan, who served on Kirklees council, appears to have said “Hang the Dwarf” on X, formerly Twitter, in response to a post about Mr Bercow in 2019.
Hope Not Hate, which unearthed the account, also pointed to a post from the same year in which Mr Rowan appears to say he doesn’t believe “gays should have kids full stop”.
Elsewhere, Mr Rowan allegedly called for his followers “to get our pick forks [sic] and whippets and demolish London” and turn Westminster into a “Witherspoons”. It is assumed this is referring to a Wetherspoons pub. This post was in relation to a commentator calling for riots over Brexit.
A Reform UK spokesman said: “Cllr Rowan has been suspended from Reform UK pending investigation.” The posts referred to were published on X in 2019 under an account named david rowan, with the handle @davidro63287194.
After releasing its research, Hope Not Hate said: “In recent weeks Nigel Farage has been raising concerns about his own safety and the safety of elected officials.
“In the wake of the horrifying murders of Jo Cox, David Amess and Ann Widdecombe, it’s absolutely right that all politicians should be careful about the words they use.”
Mr Farage earlier this week said he would give Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesman, a “ticking off” after he branded ex-Tory defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace a “traitor to Britain”.
Mr Yusuf launched an attack on Sir Ben on Monday, branding him a “moron” before suggesting he should be prosecuted “for treason for importing thousands of unvetted Afghans to Britain”.
Speaking to the Sun, Mr Farage admonished the Reform UK home affairs spokesman, saying calling Sir Ben – who served in the Scots Guard – a traitor was “too strong a word”. The Reform leader said: “I should give him (Mr Yusuf) a ticking off, don’t worry.”
Asked if he would be encouraging Mr Yusuf to delete the social media posts in which he criticised Sir Ben, he added: “I’ll speak to him. I’ll speak to him today, but, yeah, it’s over the top.”
In a press conference in July, after Ms Widdecombe’s murder, Mr Yusuf appeared to accuse politicians and the media of creating a narrative tantamount to “incitement” against Reform.
Mr Yusuf cited Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy calling Miss Widdecombe a “bigot”, which he did on social media in 2019, and saying “we must stand up to them (bigots) before it’s too late”.
But he was quizzed on his own use of language about political rivals in a media Q&A afterwards, including his claim last week that the Tories were “open borders lunatics that deserve their extinction”.
Asked whether he would look at his own rhetoric if he was asking other parties to do the same, he suggested there was a “clear difference” between what he had said and what other parties had said.
“Likening Reform to the Nazis, likening Reform to the fascists, regimes that are clearly the most brutal and horrific in history and saying they pose an urgent threat that needs to be stopped, I think those are in different categories,” he said.
Mr Rowan was contacted for comment.