Jenny Jones

Jenny Jones
Born	23 December 1949
Nationality	UK
UK Green Party politician

Jennifer Helen Jones, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb is a British politician and member of the Green Party of England and Wales. She was until September 2019 the sole Green Party member in the House of Lords.

Jones represented the Green Party in the London Assembly from its creation in 2000 until standing down in 2016. She was the Green candidate for Mayor of London in the 2012 election, coming third with 4.48% of first preferences. She was Deputy Mayor of London from May 2003 to June 2004. She was also the sole Green councillor on Southwark Council from 2006 to 2010.

On the London Assembly, Jones's prime areas of interest were transport, housing and planning, and policing, "with a strong emphasis on sustainability and localism". In addition to her period as deputy mayor, Jones served as Chair of London Food, Green Transport Advisor, and Road Safety Ambassador. It was announced at the beginning of August 2013 that she was to become the first Green life peer in the House of Lords since Tim Beaumont. She was introduced to the House of Lords on 5 November 2013.

Police

Jenny Jones , together with Caroline Lucas and George Galloway, brought a case in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.

Jones was a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority from its creation in 2000 "and has worked on a wide range of policing issues, with a particular focus on road safety, violence against women, civil liberties and neighbourhood policing" until it was disbanded in 2012. She was outspoken about numerous issues including what she called mayor Boris Johnson's demonisation of youth through the use of "baseless" rhetoric on "soaring gang-membership and rising knife-crime", suggesting the mayor created an unhelpful climate of fear. Jones then served as a member of the MPA's replacement body, the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee.

In response to the riots in August 2011, Jones and Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas MP co-authored an article in The Guardian, arguing that all cuts to policing should be postponed until December 2012 when a sufficient review of the events has occurred and the lessons from the London Olympics are learned, "In the meantime, the police should focus on spending money wisely, and ensuring that police officers are not burdened with administrative tasks which take them away from frontline policing."

After herself being kettled at a students demonstration, Jones was vociferously critical of this police tactic, telling the BBC the police used kettling to "imprison peaceful campaigners and have shown they can't be trusted with such a powerful tactic", suggesting "The Met's reputation sinks even further every time they abuse their powers and it's time to stop this particular mistreatment".

In June 2014, Jones penned an editorial in The Guardian wherein she criticised the surveillance tactics of police on activists. After going through the process now available through the Data Protection Act to get the police report on herself, she found that she was labelled a potential "domestic extremist". She found that the report contained only publicly available information, such as tweets, and that nothing in it would suggest potentially dangerous activity. Jones has been under surveillance by the police's "domestic extremism" unit from 2001 until 2012, including the time during her attempt to become London's mayor. She viewed the revelation as both a violation of her privacy and a waste of police resources. She is now calling for a re-evaluation of police policies, especially in regards to political activists.

In January 2016, whistleblower Sgt David Williams claimed that the police's "domestic extremism" unit shredded records "related to" Jones in June 2014, the month Jones met with the unit pressing for answers.

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