The Medway political world was shaken this week following the Conservative Party’s decision to suspend Councillor Michael Franklin.

Mr Franklin was suspended after ‘Islamophobic’ and racist tweets -that he shared 3 years ago- resurfaced on Wednesday and were shared by Baroness Sayeeda Wasi.

These tweets were exposed in January 2016 by the online blog ‘The Political Medway’, but after an investigation conducted by Medway Council shortly after, no action was taken against Cllr Franklin.

We spoke with Steven Keevil and Ed Jennings, co-creators of the blog, to discuss the Conservative Party’s decision, the lack of action from Medway Council in 2016 and the future of Cllr Michael Franklin’s case.

When asked about their first reaction to the suspension, Ed Jennings, who wrote the article for the blog in 2016, said that they were happy to see that some action was taken against Mr Franklin after all these years.

“We are very happy that something has finally been done about Councillor Franklin’s tweets that we raised three years ago.

“Our main reaction at this point is mostly just questioning why it took so long for something to actually happen.”

Steve Keevil criticised the local Conservatives behaviour after the suspension was announced as they claimed, ‘they had only just heard about it’.

“How can people high up in the local Conservative Party be saying ‘this is the first I’ve heard of it’, when we (The Political Medway) raised it three years ago?

“How can they say they reacted as soon as they heard about it when evidence show we raised it three years ago?”

Before the scandal broke out, Councillor Michael Franklin had announced his intention to run in May’s election, but Ed Jennings says it’s very difficult for him to remain a candidate after the suspension.

“With local elections coming up in May I think it’s very difficult for him to remain a candidate in these elections but obviously that’s now a matter for the conservative party to deal with.”

Meanwhile, Steve Keevil says it will be interesting to see who will run instead of him in the local elections.

“It will be interesting to see if he continues to attend (Medway) Council as an independent, because he is still technically elected, and it will be interesting to see who gets selected in his place (for the elections). We are still on a situation so close to the local elections where the two main parties haven’t announced their full candidate list.”

On Wednesday afternoon, many local politicians spoke out after Mr Franklin’s suspension including Andrew Kennedy, Chair of Chatham and Aylesford Conservative Party, and Cllr Alan Jarrett, leader of Medway Council.

In a joint statement they announced the suspension of Cllr Franklin pending a full investigation.

Medway Labour Leader Vince Maple criticised the Conservative party and questioned why it took so long to suspend Mr Franklin.

“I would say that’s three years too long. If they [the local Conservative Party] would have wanted to suspend him, they could have done that three years ago, they could have investigated three years ago. It’s only now that they are being highlighted on a national level that they have chosen to do this [suspend him].”

*Interview filmed and conducted by Alex Crean

*Story and questions by Kenneth Sanchez