Sheffield Labour Party fails in attempt to jail opposition councillor

A tree yesterday

You might think that the Sheffield Labour Party had got itself into enough trouble by selecting Jared O'Mara as a parliamentary candidate, but it was not content to leave things at that.

Today, a hearing took place at which the Labour-dominated city council sought to have a Green member of the authority convicted of breaching an injunction preventing her from demonstrating against its absurd PFI contract.

That contract is seeing healthy trees felled across the city.

If convicted, the Green councillor Alison Teal could have faced two years in prison. The good news is that the court decided she had not breached the injunction.

According to the Guardian:

Afterwards, Teal accused Sheffield council of behaving like bullies. She castigated the authority for using public money to try to put her in prison, saying their pursuit of her for peaceful protest was "frightening for democracy2.

She is right.

We sometimes talk lightly about Labour's "one-party states", but this is no joke.

Having opposition politicians imprisoned is just how tyrannies operate.

Meanwhile, for a good analysis of Labour in Sheffield got itself into such a mess over its PFI contract, read George Monbiot.