A senior opposition councillor is being investigated for allegedly likening women’s rights campaigners to “fascists” during the debate on Bristol’s strip clubs. Tory Cllr Richard Eddy is accused of breaching the city council’s member code of conduct with his comments at the licensing committee.
He has dismissed the probe as “rather absurd” saying it is a “crying shame that some members of the ‘woke’ brigade are terrified of free speech”. It comes as a long-running dispute, including a formal independent investigation and the threat of libel action by two senior officers over previous comments by Cllr Eddy at a council meeting 18 months ago, is understood to have been finally resolved by agreement.
The Bishopsworth ward councillor told the pair at a human resources committee in February 2021 that their attempts to justify transferring about 200 cleaning and security staff to Bristol Waste were “worthy of Dr Goebbels and the Third Reich”, referring to Hitler’s minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels. During the recent licensing committee meeting where members, including Cllr Eddy, voted by 10-1 against a ban on sexual entertainment venues (SEVs), the Conservative said the local authority had been going round in circles on the issue for almost six years.
