Last week Reform-led East Sussex Council announced it was ending school holiday food vouchers for the borough’s hungriest children, saying, big-heartedly, that the focus should be to “help build longer-term financial resilience”.
The vouchers allowed families in difficulty to ensure the poorest children did not go hungry during the holidays. But Andy Woolley, the council’s Reform leader, said that the government had withdrawn funding it previously provided and introduced a £1bn Crisis and Resilience Fund, which would be used for more targeted support.
The decision led one local café owner to start serving up free meals to hungry children. Barry Ashley, who runs the not-for-profit Grumpy Cook café in Hastings, said that “just to take those away without considering what they should be putting in place, without doing any risk assessment, without doing any impact assessment, it’s beyond bizarre”.
And what has been Reform’s response to this? Woolley has reported Ashley, along with local Labour MP Helena Dollimore, to the police, claiming that by naming him in their criticism of the decision they were putting his life in danger!
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After publicly questioning the vouchers’ withdrawal – using hardly inflammatory language such as “Councillor Woolley, should you go for re-election into office again I hope voters wrap your sandwiches and those of your party in a road map” – he was astonished to receive a WhatsApp message and email from the council leader saying he was reporting him and Dollimore, who has similarly been critical of the decision, to police.
In an email to Dollimore, Woolley said it was a collective decision by the Reform cabinet to stop issuing vouchers and claimed naming him in online posts could be responsible for inciting hate and potential violence against him – cynically using the horrific murder of Ann Widdecombe to shut the pair up.
He wrote: “Your continued naming of me personally has led to an increase in online abuse of me personally and has now reached a point where you could be responsible for inciting hate and potential violence against me, a political official, and members of my family.
“You of all people should be aware of the increased sensitivity of these sorts of posts since the sad murder of Ann Widdecombe.
“As such I shall be reporting you both to the police and to the Parliamentary standards committee.”
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He has since defended his move, issuing a statement saying that “when public figures repeatedly personalise a collective decision and present it in a way that fuels hostility towards an individual, they should recognise the foreseeable consequences of doing so.
“Whether any individual communication crosses the criminal threshold is a matter for the police.”
For her part, Dollimore, MP for Hastings and Rye, has said that: “Politicians and members of the public should be free to comment on and criticise decisions made by their opponents. I know that Reform UK includes ‘defence of free speech’ as amongst its policies.”
Silly Ms Dollimore! Doesn’t she know that free speech only applies to Reform politicians attacking their opponents – but never the other way round?
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