A Liberal Democrat candidate has refused to apologise for a series of shocking Islamophobic comments. Sick Dave Stone suggested a pork restaurant and a topless bar — named after Islam’s holiest city – should be build next to a mosque.
The would-be councillor, who is the party’s candidate for a by-election in Redcar and Cleveland on 19 January, said:
“Regarding the mosque being built near ground zero. I say let them build it. But then, across the street we should put a topless bar called “You Mecca Me Hot” … and next to that a pork rib restaurant … Then we’ll see who’s tolerant.”
A number of posts on his Facebook page were seemingly calculated to deliberately offend Muslims — including spreading outright smears. Stones claimed that the Royal British Legion were “not selling poppies in certain areas of the UK”, implying that objections from Muslims were behind the decision:
When contacted by Scrapbook, however, a spokesperson for The Royal British Legion said his claims about the poppies were “categorically not true”.
This brazen intolerance brings to mind Cllr Warren Swaine, a Liberal Democrat who was suspended from Reading Borough Council after Scrapbook exposed a race remark about Labour MP Chuka Umunna. That incident, and an attempted cover up, led to an internal party investigation at the behest of the party’s outraged black members.
Will the Lib Dem leadership be burying its head in the sand again this time?