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Tory supporter’s racist tweet Piles on Barwell’s campaign pain

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Anne Piles, front left, "Backing Barwell" at the start of the election campaign with Croydon's three Tory parliamentary candidates - Vidhi Mohan (North), Barwell and Chris Philp (South)

Anne Piles, front left, “Backing Barwell” at the start of the election campaign with Croydon’s three Tory parliamentary candidates – Vidhi Mohan (North), Barwell and Chris Philp (South)

With each passing day, it becomes ever more clear that Croydon’s Tories will accept the support of anyone, regardless of their attitudes towards employment law, or their blatant racism.

On Thursday, Inside Croydon reported how Gavin Barwell, the erstwhile MP for Croydon Central, in his latest gaffe, had resorted to including an endorsement from a businesswoman who had been fined £35,000 for failing to pay her employees the legal minimum wage.

In front of an audience of business people from across the whole of Croydon on Friday, Barwell had an opportunity to try to distance himself from the conduct of the businesswoman, Neelofar Khan.

It is telling that Barwell chose not to do so. Khan was in the audience with Croydon FSB – Federation of Small Businesses – members.

Yesterday, pictured out knocking on doors for Barwell’s campaign was the now rarely seen former leader of Croydon Conservatives, Mike Fisher, who has carried the tag #WadGate since he was caught paying himself an extra £10,000-plus in councillor expenses without bothering to mention it to his ward residents.

And here we have something else which could make Barwell squirm with discomfort.

It is a tweet from the prominent Selsdon Tory, Anne Piles, notoriously locally as a regular and apparently welcomed correspondent with the Redhill-based Sadvertiser.

Her views about the traveller community, aired on social media, may shock many reasonably minded people:

The tweet from Anne Piles to her husband last year. Classy, eh?

As far as we’re aware, Croydon Conservatives have never sought to take any action over Piles and such comments made on her closely controlled Twitter account.

But then Barwell’s campaign is in such disarray, he must need all the help he can get, even from someone who makes such a prejudiced comment.


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