A partially-deaf councillor is demanding an apology after one of his political opponents told him to "get a hearing aid".
Green convenor, Keith Taylor, was asking questions at a meeting about whether Brighton and Hove City Council was boycotting oil supplies from the United States.
Labour Cabinet councillor Ian Duncan intervened and suggested Mr Taylor should get a hearing aid.
Coun Taylor said: "As a person who is partially deaf, I found this remark grossly offensive and upsetting.
"There was no other interpretation of his remarks than they were an attempt to humiliate and poke fun at a disability and as such, they brought both the council and the role of the Cabinet member into serious disrepute."
Coun Taylor has written to council chief executive Glynn Jones to request a written apology from Coun Duncan and a public statement from him to the next council meeting.
Coun Duncan said: "If anything I said caused Mr Taylor personal offence, then I apologise sincerely. However, he had been given answers to the questions on a number of previous occasions.
"I will continue to ridicule his obsessive attachment to gesture politics."
The city council is not boycotting oil products from the United States as a protest at its environmental policies because it does not buy American oil.
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