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The wife of a former Conservative councillor has lost an appeal against her 31-month prison sentence for an online rant about migrants on the day of the Southport attacks.

The judgment handed down by Lord Justice Holroyd at the Court of Appeal on Tuesday said there was “no arguable basis” that Lucy Connolly’s original sentence was “manifestly excessive”.

“The application for leave to appeal against sentence therefore fails and is refused,” it said.

Connolly, whose husband Raymond Connolly was a Tory West Northamptonshire councillor until he lost his seat in May, was arrested on 6 August 2024 after calling for “mass deportation now” in an X post on 29 July, which also said hotels housing asylum seekers should be set on fire.

“If that makes me racist so be it,” she wrote.

The post was viewed 310,000 times in the three-and-a-half hours before Connolly deleted it.

She was sentenced to 31 months in prison at Birmingham Crown Court last October, after pleading guilty to a charge of inciting racial hatred. She was ordered to serve 40% of the sentence in prison before being released on licence.

Raymond Connolly outside the Court of Appeal.
Pic: PA
Image:
Raymond Connolly outside the Court of Appeal. Pic: PA

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Connolly shared her X post on the same day three young girls were killed in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport last year.

False information claiming the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker spread online, leading to riots and unrest in multiple locations across the UK.

Axel Rudakubana, 18, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 52 years in January after pleading guilty to murdering Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar in Southport that day.

Connolly, from Northampton, later apologised for acting on “false and malicious” information.

Reacting to the appeal decision, her husband described it as “shocking and unfair”, adding that Connolly is a “good person and not a racist”.

(L-R) Victims Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King and Alice Dasilva Aguiar
Image:
(L-R) Southport victims Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar

Southport murders resurfaced anxiety over son’s death

Connolly last week told judges she was “really angry, really upset” and “distressed that those children had died” when she shared her X post.

She said via videolink from prison that her own son died tragically around 14 years ago and that news of the children’s murders in Southport had caused a resurgence of grief-related anxiety.

“Those parents still have to live a life of grief,” she said. “It sends me into a state of anxiety and I worry about my children.”

Connolly also told the judges that, despite conversations with her legal team, she had not understood that by pleading guilty she was accepting that she intended to incite violence.

When asked if she intended for anybody to set asylum hotels on fire, Connolly said: “Absolutely not.”

Defendant ‘took care of children of African heritage’

But in his judgment on Tuesday, Lord Justice Holroyd said that the principal ground of Connolly’s appeal was “substantially based on a version of events put forward by [her]”, which he and his colleagues Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Sheldon have “rejected”.

In a statement released shortly after the judgment on Tuesday, Mr Connolly insisted that his wife is “not a racist”.

“As a childminder she took care of small children of African and Asian heritage; they loved Lucy as she loved them,” he said.

“My wife has paid a very high price for making a mistake and today the court has shown her no mercy. Lucy got more time in jail for one tweet than some paedophiles and domestic abusers get.”

He said he believes the “system wanted to make an example” of his wife to ensure they were “scared to say things about immigration”.

“This is not the British way,” he said.

He added: “The 284 days of separation have been very hard, particularly on our 12-year-old girl.

“Lucy posted one nasty tweet when she was upset and angry about three little girls who were brutally murdered in Southport. She realised the tweet was wrong and deleted it within four hours. That did not mean Lucy was a ‘far right thug’ as Prime Minister Keir Starmer claimed.”

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Why Boris’s best mate is off to Reform

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Why Boris's best mate is off to Reform

👉Listen to Politics at Sam and Anne’s on your podcast app👈       

Former Conservative chairman and friend of Boris Johnson – Sir Jake Berry – is defecting to Reform UK, causing more problems for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.

On today’s episode, Sky News’ Sam Coates and Politico’s Anne McElvoy discuss if his defection will divide parts of Reform policy.

Elsewhere, the Anglo-French summit gets under way, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer hoping to announce a migration deal with French President Emmanuel Macron to deter small boat crossings.

Plus, chatter around Whitehall that No10 are considering a pre-summer reshuffle, but will it have any value?

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Australia to test CBDCs, stablecoins in next stage of crypto play

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Starmer and Macron agree need for ‘new deterrent’ to stop small boat crossings

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Starmer and Macron agree need for 'new deterrent' to stop small boat crossings

Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have agreed the need for a “new deterrent” to deter small boats crossings in the Channel, Downing Street has said.

The prime minister met Mr Macron this afternoon as part of the French president’s state visit to the UK, which began on Tuesday.

High up the agenda for the two leaders is the need to tackle small boat crossings in the Channel, which Mr Macron said yesterday was a “burden” for both the UK and France.

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The small boats crisis is a pressing issue for the prime minister, given that more than 20,000 migrants crossed the English Channel to the UK in the first six months of this year – a rise of almost 50% on the number crossing in 2024.

Sir Keir is hoping he can reach a deal for a one-in one-out return treaty with France, ahead of the UK-France summit on Thursday, which will involve ministerial teams from both nations.

The deal would see those crossing the Channel illegally sent back to France in exchange for Britain taking in any asylum seeker with a family connection in the UK.

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However, it is understood the deal is still in the balance, with some EU countries unhappy about France and the UK agreeing on a bilateral deal.

French newspaper Le Monde reports that up to 50 small boat migrants could be sent back to France each week, starting from August, as part of an agreement between Sir Keir and Mr Macron.

A statement from Downing Street said: “The prime minister met the French President Emmanuel Macron in Downing Street this afternoon.

“They reflected on the state visit of the president so far, agreeing that it had been an important representation of the deep ties between our two countries.

“Moving on to discuss joint working, they shared their desire to deepen our partnership further – from joint leadership in support of Ukraine to strengthening our defence collaboration and increasing bilateral trade and investment.”

It added: “The leaders agreed tackling the threat of irregular migration and small boat crossings is a shared priority that requires shared solutions.

“The prime minister spoke of his government’s toughening of the system in the past year to ensure rules are respected and enforced, including a massive surge in illegal working arrests to end the false promise of jobs that are used to sell spaces on boats.

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“The two leaders agreed on the need to go further and make progress on new and innovative solutions, including a new deterrent to break the business model of these gangs.”

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, seized on the statement to criticise Labour for scrapping the Conservatives’ Rwanda plan, which the Tories claim would have sent asylum seekers “entering the UK illegally” to Rwanda.

He said in an online post: “We had a deterrent ready to go, where every single illegal immigrant arriving over the Channel would be sent to Rwanda.

“But Starmer cancelled this before it had a chance to start.

“Now, a year later, he’s realised he made a massive mistake. That’s why numbers have surged and this year so far has been the worst in history for illegal channel crossings.

“Starmer is weak and incompetent and he’s lost control of our borders.”

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