A councillor who was ejected from his own party and stripped of council roles for controversial tweets he made may go to the European Court of Human Rights.

Independent councillor Ben Duncan has told The Argus he may go to Strasbourg after Brighton and Hove City Council rejected his appeal.

He said there was an important principle at stake that councillors should be free to speak their minds after he was reprimanded for tweets where he described British soldiers as “hired killers” and joked he should stone his daughter for pressing flowers in an “Islam book”.

He also criticised the “kangaroo court” of the standards system on councillors’ behaviour and described the whole system as a “waste of taxpayers’ money”. Coun Duncan was stripped of his deputy chair roles on the city council’s licensing committee at Thursday’s full council following a recent hearing.

Coun Duncan is still to make up his mind about further action but said any case would challenge the Government’s Localism Act which sets councils’ need to draw up codes of conduct which he says fail to protect free speech.

The former Green said councillors should not be held to standards above and beyond what govern ordinary people.

He said: “The point is whether councillors have the right to free speech even if that offends and I think that they do.

“It’s an important issue for democracy if councillors are told they can’t say certain things.

“Councillors should be judged by the ballot box and when people come to vote they should know as much about the candidate as possible.

“That is not possible if they are restricted in what they can say.”

Coun Duncan was given his punishment following a hearing in front of three councillors.

He said: “The whole process is a waste of public money.

“At the moment the council is looking at making people on low incomes pay more council tax and what are they paying for? – a kangaroo court.”

Abraham Ghebre-Ghiorghis, head of legal services, said his request for an appeal did not satisfy the necessary criteria.