WhatsApp group councillors breached standards

Six Labour councillors in Greater Manchester suspended over offensive messages in a controversial WhatsApp group have been found to have breached a code of conduct.

Messages from the so-called Trigger Me Timbers group, made up of former Gorton and Denton MP Andrew Gwynne, Burnley MP Oliver Ryan, party activists and Tameside councillors from three wards in Denton were leaked in February 2025.

Complaints were made claiming the messages included racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, hate speech and even death threats towards constituents.

An independent report has found the six councillors had breached codes of conduct compelling them uphold professional standards and was published ahead of the Denton and Gorton by-election.

Evidence of breaches by councillors Allison Gwynne, Brenda Warrington, Jack Naylor, George Newton and George Jones, as well as former councillor Claire Reid, were all found in the investigation.

They insisted the group, set up in 2019, was private.

The complaints about the group came from Phil Foster, Gary Clarke, and Independent Tameside Councillor Kaleel Khan.

Investigator Linda Comstive looked through 39,666 exchanges in the WhatsApp group from between 2019 and 2022, which when printed came out as 1,250 sheets of A4 paper.

In the messages, Warrington compared some local people to serial killers Fred and Rose West, while another message from Allison Gwynne read "kids in Denton have always enjoyed swimming in street rubbish/raw sewage".

One chat saw Newton refer to a local vicar as "the Laziest vicar ever", ridicule their size, and makes sexist slurs about them, the investigation found.

Comstive found he was a major participant in the group, and that a "reasonable person" would find some of his remarks about Navendu Mishra MP racist.

When she interviewed him he argued the group was like "us chatting over a cup of tea".

Reid was found to have "persistently abused and denigrated" a member of the Labour Party in the group, while Jones "participated in chats that were disrespectful", for example to the public in Tameside, the inspector found.

She also found in one message, Naylor made "an anti-Semitic joke that is disrespectful to members of the Jewish faith".

Warrington, Newton and Jones have all apologised for the offence caused, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

In response to the investigator, Warrington, a former council leader said: "It remains to be said that it was never my intention to offend anyone, and I apologise for any comments I may have made in the chat that has resulted in upset.

"The responsibility for the offence lies with those persons who, for malicious reasons chose to leak the chat to the press."

Allison Gwynne, the wife of outgoing Gorton and Denton MP Andrew Gwynne refused to reply a request to be interviewed, while Naylor agreed to meet for an interview with the investigator but did not attend.

He stepped down after the scandal broke in February 2025, alongside Reid and Newton.

The investigator's findings will be discussed by a Tameside Council standards committee on 2 February, where any action for the breaches will be considered.

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