THERE was scepticism yesterday when the Tories promised to launch an investigation into a local party’s decision to work with a racist to take control of a Lancashire council.

Rosemary Carroll had originally been a Tory councillor, but was suspended by the party on Pendle council, in Lancashire, last June after making a vile and offensive “joke” about Asian people being smelly, lazy benefit scroungers. She had been sitting as an independent until Thursday when Theresa May’s party brought her back into the fold to give them a one-seat majority on the council.

READ MORE: Who’s all in Ruth Davidson’s Hall of Conservative Shame?

At the election count Carroll had been seen wearing a blue rosette.

When the results gave the Tories 24 seats, the same as Labour and the LibDems combined, it emerged, to the surprise of the other parties, that Carroll had been readmitted.

Asked about it on BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show, Tory business secretary Greg Clark said: “I haven’t seen that, but I have seen the reports of it, and it seems to me that if they are the views of this person, she has no place in the Conservative party, and I’m sure the party authorities will have to investigate that.”

Asked what could happen, he said: “If they are her views then they are incompatible with the Conservative party, but it is for the party authorities to investigate that.”

On Friday, Tory chair Brandon Lewis tweeted: “Super result for the fantastic team in Pendle @Andrew4Pendle #conservativesdeliver #canyouseeyourself”

Yesterday, he told Sophy Ridge of Sky News that the racist joke was “an accident.”

“She was suspended, she’s been through diversity training. The punishment she had was endorsed by the Labour Party and the BNP, who supported them on that council at the time. So we need to be very clear about what the facts are.

“But it is something that I am going to be having a look at, because we’ve been very clear from the beginning.

“In our party, if we have an issue come up, as we have done over the last few months, when it comes up, we won’t do what the Labour Party does and pretend it doesn’t exist.

“We will deal with it.”

The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said there must be immediate action and said it seemed hypocritical for the Tories to attack Labour over anti-semitism when they were openly courting a racist.

He told Andrew Marr: “To have the Conservative party take control of the council by reinstating a councillor who used the foulest racist joke is unacceptable.

“I want Theresa May to say now to Brandon Lewis, who congratulated those councillors, first of all to apologise and suspend that councillor again. It’s unacceptable.”

Mohammed Iqbal, the leader of the Labour group in Pendle, said the situation was appalling. “She turned up with a Conservative rosette literally as the votes were being counted,” he said.

Meanwhile, a teenage activist has asked her MP Michael Fabricant to apologise for calling her a twat.

The exchange between Fabricant and 19-year-old Darcy Norgate, began with a tweet on Friday afternoon in which the Tory MP said Labour was having bad day at the election.

Darcy replied: “Not as disappointing as Burntwood since you neglected it.”

Minutes later, Fabricant, 67, responded: “Says a complete twat who seems unaware that there is no vote this year in Burntwood!”

The MP later said he thought twat was a synonym for twit.

Darcy, a media student who lives in Burntwood, said she felt Fabricant had tried to “publicly humiliate” her.

“I just want an apology,” she said.