A Zoom parish council meeting has gone viral after insults and expletives descended it into absolute chaos.
Handforth Parish Council, which represents a town of 6,000 people, held the now-viral meeting back in December.
In the UK, parish councils are the lowest tier of local government.
The meeting was intended to be a civilized discussion about parking bays and bin collections, however, things took a turn when council chair Brian Tolver refused to recognize the meeting's legitimacy after it was called by two other councilors and not him.
Tolver also refused to accept Jackie Weaver's authority, who was acting as the meeting's clerk.
Official meeting minutes note that Tolver "proceeded to disrupt the proceedings", but that is a very polite description of what happened next.
In the clip below, Weaver's authority is questioned:
"This meeting has not been called according to the law. It's only the chairman who can remove people from the meeting. You have no authority here Jackie Weaver, no authority at all," Tolver says.
Weaver then decides to show Tolver just how much authority she has by removing him from the meeting.
"She's just kicked him out!" councilor Aled Brewerton says before proclaiming that he is now the meeting's chair.
"I take charge," he shouts, "read the standing orders, read them and understand them!
After this, things only go from bad to worse, with other notable moments from the meeting including laughter when a councilor asks for order, someone flushing a toilet, and someone exclaiming: "We're trying to have a Teams meeting, you fool!"
Watch the entire meeting in all its chaotic glory below:
A counselor asks at one point why Tolver's Zoom name identifies him as the council's "clerk" as he was not appointed to this role.
"There is no way of stopping him from calling himself clerk," Weaver notes in response. "Please refer to me as Britney Spears from now on."
The minutes state that the disruptive councilors who were ejected from the meeting: "In the waiting room they were advised that they would be welcome to re-join the meeting if they ceased their disruptive behavior. There was no response."
Since the zoom meeting went viral, Weaver has told BBC Radio Four's Woman's Hour that she's surprised by the reaction.
"I suppose the surprise comes in large part because actually 99.99% - that's an actual fact I'm sure - of council meetings are just not like that," she said.
"They are often less exciting than we might hope they were."
Tolver, on the other hand, has claimed that the clips are "corrupt copies" and "hooky videos".
He added: "Whether they are completely genuine or not, I don't know."
But he has since gone on to insist his angry reaction was justified, telling the BBC: "If you look at the first meeting you will see I have reason to be angry."
