Westhill councillor avoids suspension over online comments
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An Aberdeenshire councillor has avoided suspension after branding an online blogger as “scum” and “toxic”.
Westhill and District member Fatima Joji was brought before Standards Commission Scotland after making the comments on Twitter, now known as X.
Reverend Stuart Campbell alleged that Ms Joji’s posts breached the Councillors’ Code of Conduct.
In particular, the complaint referred to paragraph 3.1 of the code that states councillors must treat everyone with courtesy and respect, even when using social media.
The complaint was investigated and a report was referred to the Standards watchdog on August 10.
Panel members had to decide whether Ms Joji was acting in her capacity as a councillor and whether her comments breached the code.
The SNP member was represented by solicitor Scott Martin.
Rev Campbell is a Scotttish Independence campaigner and runs the Wings Over Scotland political blog.
Back in 2020 he tried to sue former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale for defamation but was unsuccessful.
However, Rev Campbell created a second account, titled the Ghost of Wings and uses it to post his views on politics.
Last July, Rev Campbell used the new account to tweet about Conservative party leadership candidate Kami Badenoch.
He stated Ms Badenoch was a “young black female working-class immigrant” and could be a good candidate for the Conservative leadership.
This led to councillor Joji retweeting the post and replying with her own comments.
In her response, she branded ‘Wings’ as “toxic”, “scum” and “a clown”, adding “he can absolutely GTF” – an acronym for get to f**k.
The hearing was told Ms Joji went on to state that Mr Campbell had harassed members of the SNP party who are from ethnic minority backgrounds.
She even updated her Twitter biography with a sentence which read “Stu Campbell is toxic”.
Mr Campbell then published a blog post titled ‘A Little Respect’ which included screenshots of the Aberdeenshire councillor’s tweets.
After telling his readers to “meet SNP councillor Fatima Joji”, he went on to explain what had been going on.
The post read: “The tweets were part of an extended tirade objecting to a tweet thread I’d posted about Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch.”
He then complained to the commissioner’s office about her conduct.
But in response to the draft commissioner’s report, Ms Joji acknowledged that she had violated the councillors’ code.
She said: “I understand my use of language such as scum and toxic have contravened the code.
“It was not acceptable to use the language I did as an elected representative.”
But Ms Joji argued she wasn’t acting in her role as a councillor while posting the tweets in question.
She claimed that the tweets were made during the council’s summer recess and while she was on her lunch break at her other job.
However, the standards commission believed she was acting as a councillor as the messages were made through her public social media account.
Panel members discussed the case earlier today.
They noted that cllr Joji had been subjected to abuse, but believed her comments were “entirely inappropriate”.
However, they saw her tweets as an attempt to stand against what she believed to be bullying and harassment of ethnic minorities in politics.
The Westhill councillor faced suspension or even disqualification from her local authority role.
However the panel agreed to let Ms Joji off lightly with a censure.
This means the Standards Commission has formally recorded its “severe and public disapproval” of her actions.
The decision will not affect her role as an Aberdeenshire councillor.
