A people’s protest is planned outside Croydon Town Hall tonight, with the organisers appealing to Brit award-winning rapper Stormzy to join them in their fight against unfair Council Tax hikes and tens of millions of pounds of additional cuts to public services.
Council taxed: Stormzy has been offered the Freedom of the Borough
The protest on Katharine Street from 5.45pm is ahead of the council’s annual meeting, where the ceremonial mayor will receive their chains of office, there will be drinks in the Mayor’s Parlour and a bunch of ex-councillors will be presented with certificates saying that they are now aldermen, alderwomen or alderpersons.
In a cynical ploy to try to improve her own chances of selection as a Labour parliamentary candidate, Alisa Flemming, the ceremonial mayor whose term in the ermine and red robes ends tonight, had pushed through the proposal that Croydon-born Stormzy – Michael Ebenezer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr – should be offered the highest honour that the council can confer, the Freedom of the Borough.
Imagine the photo opportunities!
Fund Croydon fairly: hundreds gathered ahead of Town Hall meetings in March, where the Tories imposed the Council Tax hike and Labour councillors lamely abstained
Merah Louise Smith, a 110-year-old resident from the Windrush generation, was also nominated for the Freedom of the Borough.
The council has remained silent on whether Stormzy and Smith will be attending the ceremonials tonight.
Indeed, by 10am today – less than nine hours before the council meeting is due to begin – the council’s website had no mention of the Freedom of the Borough presentations on its agenda for the meeting.
But then the council is notoriously slow at publishing public information – often deliberately so, in order to unlawfully withhold information from residents.
Blankety blank: there is no mention of the Freedom of the Borough presentations on this agenda item for tonight’s meeting
This morning, they had also yet to release details of the Tory cabinet and other appointments for 2023-2024 being made by Mayor Jason Perry. Those appointments, many of which carry tens of thousands of pounds of special responsibility allowances, should have been released last week.
The uncertainty over Stormzy’s attendance tonight could just be that the international star has seen through that he is being offered the award as a cheap publicity stunt, and decided to steer well clear of being used in such a manner by a bunch of third-rate local politicians.
If so, then he’s a good judge…
Mayor Perry – catchphrase: “Listening to Croydon” – ignored Croydon and pushed through the Council Tax hike at council meetings in March, backed by his Conservative councillor colleagues, while the borough’s Labour councillors lamely abstained.
Residents’ groups, local trades unions and the Croydon Assembly organisation have now issued their own invitation to Stormzy to join them on the Town Hall steps tonight.
David White, one of the protest organisers, told Inside Croydon, “Stormzy is a credit to Croydon and deserves an honour. But it would be better coming from the people of Croydon rather than the incompetent politicians who run Croydon Council.
“The Council has declared bankruptcy three times since 2020. It is now seeking to make the ordinary people of Croydon pay, through a huge Council Tax hike and service cuts.
“Stormzy has a strong record of standing by the ordinary people of Croydon. We hope he will reject the offer of an honour from Croydon Council, or at least join our protest outside the meeting to show his solidarity.”
The council’s annual meeting is due to begin at 6.30pm.
Read more: Here’s the Mayor and 33 Croydon Tory councillors who THREE times voted in favour of hitting you with a 15% Council Tax hike
Read more: And here are the Labour councillors who broke their word over the 15% tax hike and abandoned the people of Croydon
Read more: The solution to Perry’s finance problem: Fund Croydon Fairly
Read more: Perry admits he can’t take action against council’s bankrupters
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