Hopefully you have spent the last week enjoying time with family and friends.
But as 2025 has now rolled in I wanted to reach out to talk about the next 12 months. And what I see as the purpose of our local association.
You don’t need me to tell you how bad 2024 was for our party. We lost the General Election and in doing so a really hard working Member of Parliament in Antony Higginbotham. It couldn’t have got any worse.
Not only is Keir Starmer in Number 10 but in our area we’re back to being represented by a careerist cardboard cutout straight from the Labour Party’s School of Fluff.
Over the last 6 months we’ve seen first hand the damage Labour are capable of inflicting. In such a short space of time they’ve taken away the winter fuel allowance from struggling pensioners, gone after the farmers and have succeeded in putting a jolting brake on any prospect of economic growth. All of which has been heartily cheered on by our own local Labour stooge.
People aren’t stupid though - they can see what’s happening. Buyer’s remorse is in abundance right now but what happens next depends on us.
No doubt you will have seen the anti Labour momentum growing. Watch GB News and you’ll be minded to believe that it’s all pro Reform UK. With a slick media operation and a skilled orator in Farage (love him or loathe him) it is easy to think. But whilst Conservative leaders have come and gone (too frequently in recent times), the Party has always been bigger than any one of them. It’s our biggest strength.
That same sentence just cannot be said for Reform, who without Farage would crumble just like UKIP or the Brexit Party did before this latest vehicle.
I think I speak for the majority of members in saying that internal changes to the way our party works is solely needed. And that the task of defeating Labour falls squarely on us. Splitting the centre right of British politics is the worst of all worlds. If anything because it means a deeply unpopular Labour Party clinging to power - something which is in none of our interests.
All of this understandably has the potential to make you feel powerless to what’s going on. Downbeat, uninspired and unsure as to the future. But we still have a chance to turn it around. To provide an organised local force capable of providing the strong opposition needed to hold Labour to account and then to defeat them at the ballot box the next time we get a chance.
I can’t do that on my own. Our elected councillors can’t do that on their own. We have to pull together in working out the solutions to the problems we all see.
I’m promising anybody who gets involved that I’ll do everything I can to support our organisation. Whether as the Chairman or as a local Councillor myself. The challenge isn’t some distant endeavour, it’s about what each of us can do to challenge the wrongs taking place all around us.
There is no easy way to turn it all around but if we organise and hit the ground running this year then we can make a huge difference. Because that’s what we’ve always had as a party. The determination of people like you who are willing to roll up their sleeves and take action against what we know to be wrong. And the ability to win!
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