Sussex police and crime commissioner Katy Bourne has been censured for joining a march protesting about the housing of asylum-seekers at a military training camp in Crowborough.
A motion was tabled at a meeting of the Police and Crime Panel on Friday (30 January) when Mrs Bourne was quizzed about her decision.
She attended the 4,000-strong march in November, telling reporters that the plan had been “dumped on everybody” with “no consultation” – and she later urged the government to look into making asylum-seekers wear electronic tags.
Green councillor Paul Keene, of Lewes District Council, proposed the motion and said that the panel had “lost confidence in the commissioner and the commissioner’s conduct”.
He said: “Her lack of impartiality has brought the office of commissioner and policing into disrepute. We therefore censure her for her actions.”
Despite being warned that they did not have the power to discipline the police and crime commissioner in this way, most panel members supported the motion.
Mrs Bourne said that she would be complaining to the monitoring officer, Mark Streater, calling the motion and the line of questioning that she faced – including references to a petition calling for her to resign – “harrassment”.
She said: “I feel threatened by it. You know my history of having been stalked and I think it’s a very unreasonable abuse of your powers and your responsibilities and you’re not behaving as a critical friend, as you should be.”
Mr Streater said that there was a process for lodging complaints about the police and crime commissioner and members had failed to follow that process, springing the motion instead.
Since the initial march in November, the first 27 men have arrived at the Crowborough camp and the protests have continued.
Liberal Democrat councillor Kelvin Williams, of Wealden District Council, asked whether joining the march had been the ‘responsible’ thing to do.
Mr Williams said that the protest marches were attracting “far right agitators” and there had been “a lot of intimidation” including social media abuse and town councillors being followed home and harangued.
He added: “It’s the responsibility of all politicians to effectively calm the community and give them some reassurance that everyone is there for them and how we are looking to keep things safe.”
Mrs Bourne is the Conservative candidate to become the first directly elected mayor of Sussex.
Labour councillor Christine Bayliss, of Rother District Council, said that Mrs Bourne had not made it clear on social media that she was talking in that capacity, rather than as police and crime commissioner.
Councillor Bayliss said: “It is very regrettable that you chose to become politically involved in the scenario.”
Labour councillor Michael Jones, the leader of Crawley Borough Council, said that the motion was not harassment. It was “holding the commissioner to account”.
He said that, before she became the Tory candidate to be the mayor of Sussex, he was not aware of her attending any demonstrations.
Conservative councillor Christian Mitchell, of West Sussex County Council, criticised the way that the motion was sprung on the meeting.
It had not been mentioned beforehand to allow Mrs Bourne time to react, he said, or to give members of the public any notice about what was happening.
Defending her decision to attend the march, Mrs Bourne said: “I’m the voice of the public in policing. My job is to listen to the public and understand their concerns.
“There is a lot of misinformation out there about exactly what my stance is in this and what I have done.
“I went on the first (march). I walked at the back and I spoke to lots and lots of residents. The idea was for me to understand the strength of feeling, to understand why people were out there in the first place.
“I took that back to the police and was able to represent that, which is my job to do.”
She dismissed what she described as an attempt at “cancel culture”, saying: “I have not stood on any platforms with left or right of politics or however you want to pull politics into this.
“My comments in the media have been very careful – to make sure that I do my job as police and crime commissioner.
“I’ve represented the public’s views and their concerns in the way I should in my role.”
The motion was carried by ten votes to four, with one abstention. The chair, Labour councillor Andrei Czolak, of Brighton and Hove City Council, said that he would liaise with the panel’s clerk about the next steps.
