CALLS have been made for a North Ayrshire Conservative Councillor to quit after comments he made online about his Dutch SNP counterpart.

Councillor Todd Ferguson, who represents the Dalry and West Kilbride ward on North Ayrshire Council hastily deleted his Twitter account after he was lambasted for his tweets aimed at SNP Councillor Joy Brahim, who hails from the Netherlands.

This follows on from another incident online last year where he made comments about Ms Brahim’s nationality.

Cllr Ferguson wrote on Twitter: “JoyoftheSNP, a fellow Cllr, went on a witch hunt when I asked why she wanted to break up the UK being from the EU. Despite living in this country for seven years, she is not a citizen, but is happily pocketing two tax payer funded jobs via the SNP.”

Now he is being called on to resign and Labour and SNP rivals on the council have called him out on social media and in national news outlets.

Cllr Brahim told the Herald in a statement that she is not comfortable being around Cllr Ferguson and she is calling for him to walk away from his position.

Cllr Brahim said: “Todd Ferguson was condemned nationally last year for his xenophobic comments, yet instead of suspending him, the North Ayrshire Tories made him Depute Leader. “When will Jamie Greene condemn Mr Ferguson’s misconduct? Realising that his obsession with me was still ongoing a few weeks ago, I have even started asking council officers not to make joint engagements as I am not comfortable being around Mr Ferguson.

“He has been actively trying to discredit me on social media purely because I am an EU citizen and his spontaneous, unsolicited outbursts towards me are quite disconcerting. This goes well beyond normal political discourse.

“This is not just about his xenophobia or his personal attacks on me though; Mr Ferguson has displayed unacceptable behaviour towards many of his own constituents, even publicly calling for people not to use a constituent’s business because its owner has a differing political opinion. Only recently he referred to another constituent on Twitter as a “tardo”, presumably meant as a slur against people with learning difficulties.

“I have also seen tweets in which he expresses sympathetic views of slavery.

“For a year I have tried not to rise to his attacks on myself and others, but there comes a point where we all have to take a stand so that this does not happen again. I am grateful to Labour Councillor Robert Foster for bringing this to my attention and condemning it.

“I will be submitting a complaint to the Standards Commissioner and remind anyone else who has been attacked by Mr Ferguson that they can too. As the real Todd Ferguson only seems to come out on social media, I don’t think many people realise how deplorable his views and actions really are. He is completely unfit to serve and it is time for him to resign.”

North Ayrshire Labour Councillor, Robert Foster, who alerted Joy Brahim to the tweet said: “There should be no place in our political discourse for attacks like this.

“The comments made by Councillor Todd Ferguson should be unacceptable to all, but for an elected councillor to share these views is troubling to say the least.

“There is no excuse for comments like these and we should all stand up against any form of racism or xenophobia when we see it.

“I would urge the Conservative party to take action to highlight that their elected members attacking opposition politicians simply because they where born outside the UK is wholly unacceptable.”

The North Ayrshire Conservative Group released a small statement on the issue and said: “Cllr Ferguson apologised if his comment was taken out of context and caused upset to the councillor involved, which was absolutely not his intention.”