This is my last column published as leader of the council before the results of the local elections are known (although I will have to write next week’s before we have seen the outcome).
Many of you will be relieved for a little less electioneering and a stronger focus on delivering manifesto promises – and to be frank, me too.
While elections may be about the battle of ideas (or organisational skills), the real importance of democratic systems is in getting things done that the public supports and providing services that chime with their values and principles.
I didn’t stand for council because I liked canvassing or giving speeches or arguing.
For me, the reason to stand was to be able to contribute to the city that I call home and to see it become a better and more ambitious place to live.
A lot has changed in the nature of politics, both locally and nationally, over the last four years but one thing is certain – most of the people standing for election on Thursday 2 May are positive about our city and hopeful that they can help to make the city a better place.
We argue about the direction, about the policies and about the differing needs but all councillors that I’ve met appear genuinely to wish to improve things a little – even if only a little.
Campaigning across the city, it is easy to see how different communities have different viewpoints and issues which are affecting their voting plans.
But the most important thing is to make sure that you express your choice at the ballot box.
If you stay at home and don’t bother voting, then someone else will be taking those decisions for you on their own set of issues – and that might mean four years of a city council that doesn’t reflect your principles and values.
Obviously I am hopeful to see a Labour majority council elected for the first time in 20 years – but other outcomes remain possible!
The only certainty is that the polls are open on Thursday 2 May from 7am to 10pm and that I’d like every possible voter to go out and vote.
It will all be over soon …
Councillor Daniel Yates is the Labour leader of Brighton and Hove City Council.
I will be voting with a heavy heart as the lot of you are bleeding useless. For the first time ever I haven’t a clue who to vote for. A case of ip dip bird s**t.
Politicians whether local or national, DO NOT have a duty to do what WE the electorate say they should i.e. the results of the illegal EU referendum, they stand as politicians to do best for COUNTRY first, then the constituents, and only finally for their party.
From the House of Commons website:
Edmund Burke’s Speech to the Electors of Bristol, 3 Nov. 1774:
“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion … Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.’
Sir Winston Churchill on the Duties of a Member of Parliament:
‘The first duty of a member of Parliament is to do what he thinks in his faithful and disinterested judgement is right and necessary for the honour and safety of Great Britain.
His second duty is to his constituents, of whom he is the representative but not the delegate.
Burke’s famous declaration on this subject is well known. It is only in the third place that his duty to party organization or programme takes rank. All these three loyalties should be observed, but there in no doubt of the order in which they stand under any healthy manifestation of democracy.’
So, yes, you may not agree with what they are doing, but their FIRST overriding responsability is to do what is best for the country, and any Brexit as evidenced by EVERY government report is inherently bad for the UK economy, and as the USA House of Representatives said LAST WEEK, there will absolutely NOT be any USA-UK trade deal that harms the Good Friday Agreement (another lie by the Leave campaign now exposed).
As for Leavers now saying we shouldn’t be part of the Single Market ( hint: the Single market was an idea put forward by Margaret Thatcher and Baron Cockfield:
Wikipedia: “In the 1980s, when the economy of the EEC began to lag behind the rest of the developed world, Margaret Thatcher sent Arthur Cockfield, Baron Cockfield, to the Delors Commission to take the initiative to attempt to relaunch the common market. Cockfield wrote and published a White Paper in 1985 identifying 300 measures to be addressed in order to complete a single market.[11][12][13] The White Paper was well received and led to the adoption of the Single European Act, a treaty which reformed the decision-making mechanisms of the EEC and set a deadline of 31 December 1992 for the completion of a single market. In the end, it was launched on 1 January 1993.[14]”
And who proposed a “United States of Europe” None other than Winston Churchill, September 19, 1946, in his famous speech in Zurich.
So all those Leavers who want us to leave these institutions are actually the ones betraying (in my opinion) our country and playing to Putin’s and Robert Mercers tune.
There is NO good Brexit, and all but 3 I think, opinion poles give the TRUE will of the people since 2017 as REMAIN, latest is a 14% majority for REMAIN!