Help the FSU Defend Councillor Michael Fife Cook, and Every Councillor Punished for Speaking Up
Councillor Michael Fife Cook raised the alarm about sexualised material displayed next to a children’s colouring area in a public library. As a result of that complaint, Devon County Council found that he had breached its Code of Conduct and ordered him to apologise to the officers he had criticised. He refused. With the Free Speech Union’s backing, he is now taking the Council to court.
Donate now to fund Michael’s challenge and stop councils silencing the people we elect.
On 19 October 2025, Exeter Library, which Tripadvisor describes as a “great library for anyone with young children”, hosted a Young Person’s Day event, part of Exeter’s Out There Queer Fest and billed as a “bold celebration for LGBTQIA+ young people and friends”. A stall in the foyer, next to a children’s art and colouring area, displayed a large prosthetic penis and literature promoting “chemsex”. One mother complained that she had to explain to her six- and seven-year-old children what the prosthetic penis was. A 2026 Evidential Review found significant failings in respect of the event.
On 28 November 2025, Michael, the leader of the Reform UK group on Devon County Council, emailed councillors and officers to object. He wrote:
“I think this makes it clear our council officers can’t be trusted in safeguarding children”
and
“this makes us all complicit in promoting and encouraging sexualisation of children”.
Two senior officers complained that Michael had breached the Code of Conduct. An Independent Investigator found Councillor Fife Cook had a case to answer when it came to courtesy and respect, bullying, and compromising the impartiality of council staff. The Standards Committee then went further than the Council’s own investigator: it found not only a failure of courtesy and respect, but that Michael had brought himself or his office into disrepute, a breach the investigator had not identified. It ordered him to apologise in writing to the complainants and to undergo training with the Council’s Monitoring Officer.
In short, a councillor raised a safeguarding concern about children and the Council punished him for it.
Michael spoke up for children. Help us help him. Click here to donate today.
This is not an isolated case. Councillors increasingly come to us facing Code of Conduct complaints over political speech: social media posts, criticism of council policy, robust challenges to officers. Many complaints are anonymous; many come from opponents who conceal their political motives; almost all invoke “respect” or “disrepute”, standards so vague that they capture almost any criticism someone dislikes.
Steve Horner (Reform UK, Devon) faced a series of complaints for raising concerns on Facebook about the placement of Afghan migrants in his district. Kelvin Wright (Reform UK, Nottinghamshire) was reported anonymously over comments about the Progress Pride flag and fire service policy. Dulcie Tudor (Independent) faced nine complaints and an external investigation over gender-critical posts. John Edwards (Independent, Bracknell Forest) was pursued by political opponents for mentioning an Afghan resettlement hotel scheme, even though the information was already in the public domain.
With our support, most of these complaints have been dismissed. But the process is the punishment: months of investigation, legal costs and reputational damage, imposed on people whose only offence was doing the job they were elected to do. Every councillor watching learns the lesson: stay quiet or else.
Every pound you give helps us stand beside these councillors. Please donate today.
And it’s about to get worse. The Government has committed to legislate to let councils suspend councillors for up to six months, withhold their allowances, and ban them from council premises if they breach the code of conduct. A councillor suspended for the maximum period twice within five years would be disqualified from office. Under that regime, Michael could have faced suspension and the loss of his allowance. Scotland shows where this leads: its Standards Commission suspended Andrew Wood, an independent Dumfries and Galloway councillor, for political comments, then acknowledged that it had restricted his freedom of expression in doing so.
The Free Speech Union is funding Michael’s judicial review. On 30 September 2026, his solicitors, Sharpe Pritchard, sent Devon County Council a pre-action letter contending that the Standards Committee’s decision:
A ruling in Michael’s favour would remind every Monitoring Officer and Standards Committee in England that Codes of Conduct cannot be used to silence political speech.
Litigation is expensive, and Michael will not be the last councillor who needs us. If a council can punish an elected representative for raising concerns about the safeguarding of children, any councillor who says something that annoys his officials or opponents is at risk.
Please donate to the Free Speech Union’s legal defence fund today. Your gift will help us take Michael’s case to the High Court and stand behind every councillor punished for speaking up for the people who elected them.
Donations to this appeal will be received and administered as part of the Free Speech Union's Legal Defence Fund. The Fund exists solely to support legal advice and litigation on behalf of FSU members in free speech cases and the FSU itself when it brings free speech cases in its own name. Contributions are pooled and applied by the FSU to support current and future cases involving our members' speech rights, including the case featured here. No part of any donation will be used for the Free Speech Union's general operating expenses or staff costs.
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