A former Mayor of Buckingham, who has been found to have breached the Town Council’s code of conduct by endorsing and sharing racist social media content, has been told she should resign by the local Black Lives Matter organisation.
Geraldine Collins, who was mayor at the time of the incident in August 2020, and who remains a town councillor, was found on the 3rd March this year by a Buckinghamshire Council Sub-Committee to have shared a Facebook post that “contained comments which were offensive and subjected groups of people to personal attack.”
Councillor Collins denies sharing the content, claiming that her account had been hacked. This was investigated and subsequently rejected by the Sub-Committee.
The original upload, which was made by a third party, was endorsed by Ms Collins with the comment: “thought this was good.”
The post featured a diatribe of racist tropes including protestations that English people cannot express pride in their heritage without being called racist, that people of Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) background get special, preferential treatment, and the implication that they are likely to be drug dealers, car thieves or rapists.
The 540-word rant, which has since been deleted, is too offensive to be relayed here in full. However, Bucks Radio has a copy of it, a segment of which is shown below:
The Sub-Committee accordingly made the following recommendations:
- That Buckingham Town Council should adopt a programme of equalities training for all councillors which Councillor Collins should attend
- That Buckingham Town Council should adopt guidance and training for the use of social media for all councillors and those officers who would use social media on behalf of the council
We spoke to the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Buckingham (BLMB) organisation, Rebecca Clark, who is also a teacher and Head of Inclusion in the education sector.
Describing her role as “raising racial literacy across the community,” Ms Clark said: “I’m heartened that Buckinghamshire Council has come to the conclusion it has because it’s been such a drawn-out process and throughout that process I had almost given up hope on various occasions.
“Myself and my colleague petitioned the council again and again – probably to the extent of maybe 30 emails. My fear is this would not have happened if there weren’t people who really care about it who continued to prompt the council to take action.
“I’m not interested in vilifying people, it’s about acceptable behaviours in a public space and when you’re representing your community. They have to be inclusive and they have to be anti-racist.
“So, I’m delighted it’s finally come out but I also don’t feel the wording is strong enough because it doesn’t go straight to talking about this being a racially motivated statement that she made – and it was.”
We asked Ms Clark what she hoped would happen next given that neither council has the power to remove Ms Collins from office. She said: “We hope that she will stand down and make acknowledgement of her actions.”
Bucks Radio has contacted Ms Collins but she decided she did not want to make a statement.
A Buckingham Town Council spokesperson told us the matter will be discussed at their next meeting on 9th May and a decision on what action to take will be made at that time.
You can read the Sub-Committee’s full report by clicking on ‘Printed Decisions’ here
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