A councillor who attended a protest against the use of a hotel to house asylum seekers has been cleared of accusations against her including bullying, harassment and bringing the council into disrepute.
Alison Sheridan, a Conservative member of Exeter City Council, wore her council lanyard to a protest outside a hotel in Exeter.
The council found Sheridan had “exercised her right to freedom of speech and right to peaceful assembly” and it dismissed all of the complaints brought by Green Party and Liberal Democrat councillors, members of the public and other organisations.
Sheridan hailed the decision as “a victory for free speech”.
Sheridan, who represents St Loyes, said: “This was an orchestrated attempt to cancel me because they disagreed with me, and that is really dangerous.
“It’s very dangerous for democracy to have politicians behave in this way.”
She said political opponents who had made the complaints should concentrate on “raising the voices of their residents”.
She said: “This was never about a lanyard – this was about cancelling me. The attack was personal.”
Simon Copper, the council’s monitoring officer, said Sheridan had a “right to freedom of expression” and noted she had not breached the council’s code of conduct when attending the protest on 23 August.
In a written decision, Mr Copper said it might be “preferable that councillors attend protests in a personal capacity [but] there is no legal or constitutional bar to them doing so in their capacity as councillors”.
He said: “Arguably, participation in the protest by Cllr Sheridan strengthens democratic accountability by making it clear to her constituents where she stands as a councillor on a key political issue.”
The monitoring officer noted a “significant divergence of opinion” on asylum and immigration issues and said everyone, as private citizens or as councillors, had a right “to express their views, however unpalatable those views may be to others”.
Mr Copper said the right to freedom of expression was “not curtailed on the basis that others may find the comments offensive or insulting”.
He said “as a matter of good practice, councillors should not wear identification cards when taking part in protests”.
However, he added as there was no guidance provided to members on the issue he did not consider Sheridan to be in breach of the council’s code of conduct.
