Lucy Connolly is no martyr, she's a racist. It's the truth that's being twisted

First, the facts. Lucy Connolly pleaded guilty in court to writing a social media post intending to stir up racial hatred.

She’d called for “mass deportation now” in a social media post to her 10,000 followers on X on the day three children were killed in a knife attack in Southport. In the expletive-ridden message she said: “set fire to all the f*****g hotels full of the b***** for all I care” concluding: “if that makes me racist so be it”. The post was later deleted but police established it had been available for at least three and a half hours.

So, in short, the wife of a Conservative councillor called for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set on fire.

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Judge Melbourne Inman KC said Connolly had been “well aware of how volatile the situation was” at the time of the Southport attack, volatility that led to serious disorder in a number of areas. Your message was widely read – it was viewed 310,000 times with 940 reposts, 58 quotes and 113 bookmarks,” he said.

It wasn’t just a tweet. She’d broken the law. She accepted as much, which was why she pleaded guilty. It wasn’t just a tweet. Connolly had had form for xenophobic, anti-Black and anti-migrant rhetoric on social media which a glance at her timeline would show up. It clearly wasn’t a one off.

In fact, the court was told that the day before she was arrested, Connolly had sent a WhatsApp message saying the “raging tweet about burning down hotels has bit me on the arse lol”. She also said she’d “play the mental health card” if arrested, and would deny responsibility for the post if asked.

The full picture tells a different story to the one that the liars, racists and xenophobes would have you believe. And if Connolly truly believed in her innocence she would not have sought what she believed to be a lesser sentence. Nor does this have anything whatsoever to do with censorship.

If Connolly wanted to write the same things again she’d be free to do so. Twitter would allow her post to remain, but the law of the land would find her guilty and she would likely go back to prison for a lot longer.

Because contrary to what the thugs and bigots masquerading as people who simply care about their families won’t tell you is that free speech does exist. You are free to say whatever you like. But you will also be free to accept the consequences.

Free speech doesn’t spare you from the consequences of shouting ‘Fire’ in a packed cinema when there isn’t one, sparking panic and most likely serious injury.

The likes of Nigel Farage, Richard Tice and the rest of Reform UK, with risible Tory leader Kemi Badenoch chasing the bandwagon, are throwing out any number of incendiary perspectives on this incident to whip up anger and division. Which is why it was so important for the Daily Mirror to take a stand on Thursday.

The country is a tinderbox with a significant number of people in public life who should know better encouraging vigilante mobs, stoking fear and loathing and telling straight up lies. Now that she is out, the liars will use Connolly as a martyr. And the engagement-chasing sections of the media, happy to whip up division will indulge them.

The liars will paint Connolly as a demure, childminder mum put through hell for a simple tweet. They won’t mention her other tweets, among them one referring to Somalis with vomiting emojis, the one reacting to an anti-racism protest by suggesting those taking a stand should house: “an illegal boat invader”.

They won’t let the truth get in the way of a carefully stage-managed bid to rehabilitate a woman whose prejudice is well documented. But we will.