05.02.18
All Tory councillors resign from 12-person council
Council business has been suspended at a town’s local authority after all 10 of its Conservative councillors resigned due to “bullying, abuse and harassment” from members of the public.
Jane Pearce, who was chair of the party and a councillor at Desborough Town Council in Northamptonshire, stepped down two weeks ago after her and her family were harassed following an unpopular 400% council tax hike in 2016.
The increase took the annual levy from £19.10 to £96.98 and reportedly paid for a new pedestrian crossing in the town, but has led to the party chair being hounded by angry residents.
A statement on Desborough Town Council’s website said: “Today a total of 10 Desborough Town councillors have resigned with immediate effect.
“As a result ‘reserved powers’ are now in place. All council meetings and council business is suspended until further notice.”
The Daily Mail reported that Pearce had a brick thrown through her patio window, as well as her husband and children taking abuse on Facebook.
Pearce stepped down last month at a town council meeting, which prompted two of her colleagues, Ray Brooks and Allan Matthews, to follow suit, before seven more councillors also resigned from the 12-person council.
In a letter of resignation, Brooks and Matthews condemned the “unpleasantness, rudeness, abuse and bullying” which Pearce and the other Tory councillors had endured.
“Vigorous political debate over issues of substance conducted in a civil manner is one thing. But personal abuse, intimidation and threats is quite another,” the letter read.
Allegedly, videos put up on social media of town council meetings had prompted some residents to post threats and abusive comments to councillors.