Exeter city councillor defies call to resign

Opponents say wearing lanyard breached code of conduct

An Exeter Conservative councillor says she will not resign despite claims that wearing her official city council lanyard as she joined an anti-asylum hotel protest breached a crucial code of conduct.

Alison Sheridan (Con, St Loyes) was pictured during a protest outside a hotel near Exeter Airport at the weekend, draped in a Union Flag and clearly wearing her ID lanyard.

Green councillors say that was a breach of the code of conduct, and have lodged an official complaint as a result. There has also been a complaint from an Exeter anti-racism group.

Cllr Sheridan said she wore the lanyard in order to be ‘transparent and open’ about her presence at the protest.

Police kept watch as a group of people with flags, home-made placards and a loudhailer staged their protest against the use of the hotel for asylum seekers.

They were met by a larger group from the Stand Up To Racism Exeter group, some holding placards saying ‘Refugees Welcome Here’. There have been similar protests and counter-protests at the hotel throughout August.

Green councillors say they will complain to Exeter City Council’s solicitor over Cllr Sheridan’s behaviour, saying that she had brought the council into disrepute.

Cllr Diana Moore (Green, St Davids) said: “We respect Alison Sheridan’s right to protest but wearing her councillor lanyard suggested she was acting on behalf of the council and we believe her actions were a breach of the councillor’s code of conduct.

“Accusing ‘migrants’ of being a danger to women and conflating migrants with grooming gangs displays a shocking lack of integrity and honesty.

“The hotel being targeted by Cllr Sheridan and other extremists is housing women, children and families who are now being subjected to intimidating and aggressive shouting. Cllr Sheridan’s behaviour was inflammatory and designed to cause distress to those in the hotel.”

The Stand Up To Racism Exeter group reported Cllr Sheridan to the chief executive of the city council.

They said wearing a city council ID indicated that she was attending in an official capacity.

The letter went on: “In attempting to hijack the very important issue of violence against women and children to support her own far right views Cllr Sheridan is perpetuating the dangerous myth that the greatest risk of gender-based violence comes from strangers and she is undermining the hard work of those organisations that genuinely work to support vulnerable women and children.

“By wearing her councillor lanyard at the protest, she implied that Exeter City Council gives credence to this harmful misinformation.”

Cllr Sheridan insisted that she attended because she knew what local people thought about ‘stopping the boats’.

She said: “After knocking on 5,000 doors in my ward when I was elected, I knew the residents were hugely concerned about immigration and that they didn’t know who was in their country.

“British people are rightly worried about the safety of women and girls.”

However, Green councillor Lynn Wetenhall (Newton and St Leonards) said after the protest: “It is now hard to distinguish between the Conservatives, Reform UK and other far-right groups when it comes to the treatment of migrants and those seeking asylum.

“They need reminding that Exeter has long been a City of Sanctuary, welcoming those fleeing war and persecution. Branding all ‘migrants’ – meaning anyone who has moved to this country over past decades – as a danger to women is a clear example of hate speech.”

Cllr Sheridan said some people in the hotel had ‘broken into’ Britain illegally and were therefore guilty of a crime.

And, she summed up: “I can find nothing in the council code of conduct to say that I have done anything wrong. I was open, unlike those cowards on the other side hiding their identity behind masks. None of our side wore masks.

“I wasn’t hiding but openly representing the British people and those of my ward who demand that this madness of prioritising migrants who have broken into our overcrowded country illegally ends.

“It’s time we put British people first.”