Title: Poll tax (Great Britain) - Wikipedia
Headings: Poll tax (Great Britain)
Poll tax (Great Britain)
Contents
Origins
Implementation
Opposition
Political consequences
Abolition
See also
References
Further reading

Content: There were further conflicts and protests, but none on the scale of the Trafalgar Square riot. As the amount of the poll tax began to rise and the inefficiency of local councils in their collection of the tax became apparent, large numbers of people refused to pay. Local councils tried to respond with enforcement measures, but they were largely ineffective given the huge numbers of non-payers. According to the BBC, up to 30 per cent of former ratepayers in some areas refused to pay. The anti-poll-tax organisations encouraged non-payers not to register, to clog up the courts by contesting local council attempts to gain liability orders, and ultimately, not to attend court hearings arising from their non-compliance. In November 1990, South Yorkshire police said they were planning to refuse to arrest poll tax defaulters, even when instructed to by the courts, because it would be "physically impossible for the police because of the large number of defaulters". The opposition Labour Party, at its 1988 annual conference, decided against support for a non-payment campaign. In July 1991, Terry Fields, Labour MP for Liverpool Broadgreen, and a member of the Militant Tendency, was imprisoned for sixty days for refusing to pay. At the time of Fields' jailing, Labour leader Neil Kinnock commented: " Law makers must not be law breakers."