He said Cotham School 'behave like terrorists do'
12:27, 29 Jul 2025Updated 16:53, 29 Jul 2025
A Conservative councillor in Bristol has sparked outrage after he said one of the city’s biggest secondary schools ‘behave like terrorists do’, and compared them to Hamas. The remark sparked gasps from councillors sitting around him, and then when asked to withdraw it, Cllr Richard Eddy told another councillor he ‘could whistle in the wind’.
The remark about Cotham School left councillors shocked and the school’s leaders considering taking legal action. The two main parties at City Hall have also both called on Cllr Eddy to withdraw the remarks and apologise.
Cllr Eddy was taking part in a discussion in Monday evening’s Economy and Skills Policy Committee, which saw several members of the campaign group We Love Stoke Lodge call on the council to withdraw permitted development rights from Cotham School. The school leases a large playing field from the city council from the council which has been the subject of a 13-year long dispute over shared access between local residents and the school.
The school won a High Court case last month to overturn a council decision to make the playing fields a Village Green, and is now looking to fence off the land to enable pupils to have PE lessons there again. Residents who live near the fields went to the City Hall meeting to urge councillors to withdraw permitted development rights which, at the moment, would allow the school to erect another security fence around the playing fields.
After the members of the public had their say, Cllr Eddy added his view. “I’ve got no confidence in the commitments or integrity of Cotham School or its governors. Frankly, I prefer to trust the Hamas regime in Gaza, though arguably, they behave like terrorists do. But seriously, If there’s an indication of the school seeking to use this hiatus to actually enforce permitted development rights, would you consider delegated authority with the exec director to actually pause, cause them to stay?”
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Mention of Hamas and terrorists prompted gasps from councillors sitting around him, and Labour group leader Cllr Tom Renhard (Lab, Horfield ) asked him to withdraw the remark. “Whatever the issues have gone on and the dispute is about, it’s entirely inappropriate to compare a school to a terrorist organisation, Councillor Eddy,” said Cllr Renhard. “So I encourage you to withdraw those remarks. They’re entirely inappropriate.”
The chair of the committee, Cllr Andrew Brown (Lib Dem, Hengrove & Whitchurch Park) asked Cllr Eddy to respond, and he did, saying Cllr Renhard ‘could whistle in the wind’.
Afterwards, Cllr Eddy’s remarks were condemned across the council chamber. “Making comparisons between Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation, and a local Bristol school is completely inappropriate and a petulant thing to do,” said Cllr Renhard.
“It is a one-liner intended only to stoke divisions and get himself in the press – it is truly shameful behaviour. Acting in this way should be beneath an elected representative. Saying the school ‘behaves like terrorists do’ is a flippant comment, hurtful to anyone who has lost loved ones to terrorism. To be honest, it should come as no surprise considering Councillor Eddy’s track record of punching-down,” he added.
“I call for all other parties to formally condemn the remarks and Councillor Eddy must apologise and retract them,” he said, in a press release issued by the Bristol Labour an hour after the end of the meeting.
The Green Party’s vice-chair of the committee, Cllr Jenny Bartle (Green, Easton ) was sitting next to Cllr Eddy at the time, and could be seen open-mouthed in shock, mouthing ‘Oh my God’ when he said it. “I was deeply offended by Councillor Eddy’s comments and condemn them wholeheartedly,” Cllr Bartle said. “He must apologise immediately. I will be pushing for the Council to take appropriate action, and I call on the Conservative party to do the same.
“As someone who has a record of using hyperbolic and inflammatory rhetoric in meetings to grab headlines, his disinterest in learning from his mistakes - which were correctly criticised in the meeting - is indicative of a man whose character is not befitting of public office, let alone a Vice-Chair of a policy committee,” they added.
Cllr Bartle also criticised the chair of the committee for not stepping in. “Chairs should also be more ready to remove anyone using this kind of language from meetings, especially when a pattern of bad form is long standing,” Cllr Bartle added.
Bristol Live understands senior leaders at Cotham School, which is currently on its summer holidays, are considering their next steps and how to respond to Cllr Eddy’s remarks. Bristol Live has contacted Cllr Eddy and Conservative group leader Cllr Mark Weston for a response.
UPDATE 3pm Tuesday: Cllr Richard Eddy has told Bristol Live he has no intention of apologising and doubled down on his comments about the school, saying he believed they were justified. Cotham School has told Bristol Live it is 'deeply concerned' at what Cllr Eddy said, which it said were 'offensive' to them. Read the update here.
Bizarrely, it’s not the first time the dispute over a school playing field in north Bristol has been linked to the dispute involving Israel and Palestine. Back in 2019, an exasperated Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees called on both sides to get together to negotiate a future for the fields.
In a Facebook Q&A in January 2019, Mr Rees said that, because Cotham School had signed a long lease for Stoke Lodge’s playing fields from the council, it wasn’t up to him whether or not they could erect a fence around the land to secure their pitches.
He said at the time: "The reality of my position in this is that Cotham School do not need my permission to put up a fence. It's their decision. A lot of the time I sit in the council house and I get two opposing views and I'm like Solomon and have to decide how to split this baby up.
“What we need is people with different views in the city to come and sit around the table. That's the only way a city can flourish and survive. It seems to me from what I have seen and read is that people have split into two camps and are no longer talking to each other.
“Politics can't solve that but can we put an appeal out now for these two camps to come together and have a conversation. We made progress in Northern Ireland and sometimes we make progress in the Middle East, surely we can make progress over the Cotham playing fields. And I would really welcome the opportunity to come into a room and have a discussion about how we could work together,” he added.
Richard Eddy's controversies
It's also not the first time Cllr Richard Eddy has sparked outrage and controversy in a long career as a councillor for Bishopsworth in South Bristol. Back in 2001 he was forced to resign as the Conservative's deputy leader on the city council after he adopted a golliwog doll as his mascot - something which attracted national media attention.
In 2018, he announced his opposition to a proposed second plaque on the plinth of the statue of Edward Colston in the centre of Bristol - and did that so strongly, that he said the theft or vandalism of that proposed second plaque 'may be justified' by people taking the law into their own hands. When the statue itself was pulled down in June 2020, he said he was 'horrified by the rank lawlessness' of the statue being 'attacked and vandalised by a criminal mob', and also described the 18th century slave trader as a 'hero' of Bristol.
A second plaque was finally installed on the now empty plinth this year, but not before Cllr Eddy again said he wouldn't criticise anyone who vandalised it. In the November 2024 council meeting that decided to go ahead with the second plaque, Cllr Eddy said: "I’m not in the business of encouraging lawlessness, but in my heart I would find it very difficult to criticise anyone who took it upon themselves to remove this plaque or to change it.”
More recently, in 2023, he rejected calls to resign over the scandal of a planning application in Knowle to demolish the Broadwalk Shopping Centre and build 850 new homes. It was rejected by councillors, but in the weeks afterwards, emails revealed he - as chair of the planning committee - developed a plan to overturn that decision in secret discussions with the developers.