Another attack on democracy?
Image by Alpha India
JEREMY MORFEY
I was alarmed by a Government announcement this morning that district councils are to be abolished.
I have a long history of deep discontent over local government reorganisations since the 1970s and feel very strongly that this is an appalling measure.
Before 1974, there was a distinction between urban and rural councils, with the very different interests of country and town dwellers. Under an utterly misguided measure introduced by the Heath Government, they were consolidated into single councils, and I have long felt that something very important was lost.
I grew up in Surrey. Ironically, it was the creation of Mole Valley District Council that spared Dorking town centre from comprehensive redevelopment as the incoming council cancelled plans already passed by the previous urban district council. Today Dorking is a delightful place, which cannot be said of Leatherhead, Guildford and Horsham which were “modernised” and ruined.
I have a brother living in South Australia, and visited him several times. My father is buried there. On my first visit in 1991, they still retained proper local authorities and the Stirling District Council in the Adelaide Hills was a delight and brought back memories of better times. Sadly, on my next visit in 2004, I found these enlightened little councils merged into Adelaide Hills District Council, and I felt that local representation no longer meant anything and that the authority was distant and more urban in outlook.
In the 1980s, I was an active campaigner with the SDP. By that time, I moved to Herefordshire. I discovered for the 1987 General Election campaign that whilst the Leominster Liberals had worked the constituency well, they had neglected a large part in Worcestershire that was written off, contributing to Leominster being a safe seat for Peter Temple-Morris. As the local SDP co-ordinator, it fell to me to recruit from local members a campaign team, ensuring that every voter there at the very least got a visit and a leaflet.
One of those I recruited is still an independent district councillor today. Another irony is that this man was instrumental in removing from office a friend, who is the musical director of one of the choirs I sing with and led the council for a number of years. In the last few months, the Green/Independent coalition was replaced by a rainbow monster comprising Conservatives, Labour converts (elected as Independents), Liberal Democrats and one group of Independents.
I fell out with the SDP when I stood for the National Committee. I found myself up against a former Labour MP, who used his political skills and his contacts to thwart me and to beat me down at the meeting. As a token gesture, he offered me a place on the Regional Council, but I refused. I do not support regional representation, and do not feel that those from the big conurbations of the West Midlands, with overwhelming voting power, have any claim to represent the small market towns of Herefordshire or Worcestershire, and even less their surrounding villages where I now live. I left the party after its demise after the 1987 election and have been politically independent ever since.
So we come to the present time, and one issue I used as a test at the last local elections at county level. I feel strongly that closing the further education colleges is a very backward step if we have any aspirations to grow the economy, How on earth can Angela Rayner hope to house the migrants if there are no builders trained up locally and the Poles have gone home? The F.E. colleges are a social lifeline for the isolated and a way back for those marginalised by society.
I had understood that is the remit of County for education provision. Worcestershire County Council takes the lion’s share of my Council Tax (due to double in April for my mother’s flat because my elderly mother is marooned in London, and she has so far been reluctant to sell).
Malvern Hills College was built on public land in the 1930s for the benefit of the town and its surrounding villages for public benefit – the sort of municipal benevolence so crassly thrown away in 1974. It was privatised in the 1990s and sold on several times since. Its latest owners, Warwickshire Colleges Group, after marginalising the college reducing it to little more than token courses in basket weaving, closed the college with a view to selling the land to developers and bumping up the quarterly bonus pot for managers.
At the county elections, I put this to the candidates. Conservatives at county level had washed their hands of the whole thing. They were content to take more than £1000 a year off me in council tax, but would not allow the public any benefit from this. It was all for select causes, most of which set in Whitehall. The Conservative engagement came from the local MP, Harriett Baldwin, who found a restrictive covenant preventing WCG from using or selling the site for anything other than community education, something they are going through the courts to try to reverse. Out of spite, someone from WCG was suspected setting fire to the little puppet theatre in town, passed on from its poorly founder to an arts group attached to the college, which was duly closed down.
The Liberal Democrats, once bastions of the local community, told me that the college was unviable and should remain closed and the land used for housing. People can travel to Worcester or Evesham.
The Labour candidate, a young lad eager for campaign experience in a no-hoper place, made all the right noises but was ineffectual. It was telling that he could not even spell ‘college’ correctly – perhaps an indication why colleges are needed!
The Greens were eager to open up the college, and had plenty of ideas for courses in sustainability that would help along the numerous new local business niches beyond the conventional thinking of centralised big business.
It was ultimately down to my own Independent district councillor, who was standing for county, to mount a formal bid by the District Council to buy the site and re-open the college as a community facility. Unfortunately WCG upped the price beyond anything the district could afford. They only get £150 of my £1200 council tax I am forced to pay each year for my little rural cottage, and have many responsibilities such as refuse collection, housing and planning that County cannot be bothered with.
So determined is this present Government, on a 20% popular mandate nationally and negligible mandate locally, to remove the last vestiges of my representation. It is utterly corrupt, having lost any reputation it may have had in the 2010s for me with the Single Sex Marriage Act that was quite improperly conducted, and the hounding of subpostmasters over decades that had the full support at highest level until the Sunak Government was shamed by a TV drama to do something about it. For me, Starmer is a reprise of the catastrophic Truss era, and has few if any redeeming features.
It seems to me that local government is to be reduced to unrepresentative bullies of the politburo in Downing Street, with ever increasing powers to throttle the nation in its bid to transfer national and public assets to select interests defined centrally by a clone of sycophantic and mechanised zombies.
This article (Labour’s District Council Reorganisation) was created and published by Free Speech Backlash and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Jeremy Morfey
*****
RELATED
CP
In a move that has ignited outrage across the country, Keir Starmer’s Labour government is set to cancel some of next May’s local elections, a decision unprecedented in peacetime since World War II.
Under the guise of council “reorganisation,” Labour’s scheme has been described by critics as a brazen attempt to dodge accountability, tighten its grip on power, and silence the voice of the British electorate.
This controversial decision has provoked fury across the political spectrum, with many warning it sets a chilling precedent for democracy. Elections, after all, are the cornerstone of British political life.
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, lambasted Labour’s actions as “the act of a desperate government”, adding:
“Labour has the audacity to call us a ‘threat to democracy’ while they behave like third-world dictators. Cancelling elections in areas where Reform is gaining momentum is nothing less than an authoritarian power grab.”
Farage’s blunt assessment echoes the growing sentiment among voters, who now see a government running scared of public opinion.
Dodging Accountability, Labour-Style
Labour’s timing is far from coincidental. Facing sliding poll numbers, growing discontent over broken promises, and surging support for opposition parties like Reform UK and the Conservatives, Starmer’s government appears to be pulling the democratic rug from under the British public. The decision to postpone council elections—affecting 21 county councils and 10 unitary authorities across England—smacks of political expediency.
For comparison, when the Conservatives undertook council reorganisation in their last parliamentary term, they rejected any proposal to delay elections, prioritising democratic accountability. Labour’s actions, however, tell a different story. One senior commentator described it as:
“Sinister, undemocratic and dictatorial… Starmer is evading the voters because he knows they are losing faith in Labour.”
It’s hard to argue otherwise. Starmer’s Labour government swept into power on promises to lower energy bills, respect the Brexit mandate, and tackle the cost-of-living crisis. Yet, since July, those pledges have amounted to little more than empty rhetoric. Instead, voters face skyrocketing energy costs, tax hikes, and an economy teetering on the brink of recession. No wonder Labour wants to avoid the judgement of the ballot box.
A Chilling Precedent for British Democracy
The consequences of Labour’s decision go far beyond party politics. The potential cancellation of local elections raises an alarming question: if the government can scrap elections for political convenience, what other freedoms are at risk?This is not merely a slippery slope—it’s a fundamental assault on the principles of democracy.
Former UKIP leader Henry Bolton issued a stark warning:
“Keir Starmer’s Labour government, realising how unpopular they are, intend to evade democratic accountability by postponing some of next year’s local elections, pushing them out to 2026 or even 2027. This is unacceptable.”
Labour’s plans to “reorganise” councils could see local authorities merged or abolished, wiping out centuries of local representation. Communities would be stripped of their democratic voice, leaving decision-making concentrated in the hands of Whitehall bureaucrats. This creeping centralisation undermines the very essence of local government and represents yet another step towards authoritarian control.
The People Deserve Their Say
The irony is glaring: Labour, which endlessly lectures the public about “defending democracy,” now stands accused of subverting it. Postponing elections is an act so serious it has only been seen in wartime Britain. What Starmer and his deputy, Angela Rayner, are pushing forward is, to many, not reform—but an assault on the very fabric of democratic life.
The British public should be under no illusions: elections are the safeguard of accountability. They are the mechanism by which the people hold their leaders to account, and their cancellation is a dangerous precedent that should concern every citizen.
The Fight for Democracy
As Labour scrambles to avoid facing the electorate, opposition leaders and grassroots activists are preparing for a defence of democracy. Reform UK, the Conservatives, and countless others are warning the public that their voice—and their vote—must not be sacrificed for political convenience.
In the words of one political analyst:
“History teaches us that when elections are cancelled, freedom itself is on the line. The people of Britain must decide: will they stand up for their democratic rights, or will they allow Labour’s creeping authoritarianism to take hold?”
For now, the future of British democracy hangs in the balance. Starmer may wish to silence the electorate, but the people of Britain will not go quietly. The fight for accountability, transparency, and the sacred right to vote has begun—and it has never been more urgent.
Photo licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
This article (Starmer Moves to Cancel Local Elections in Unprecedented Assault on Democracy) was created and published by Conservative Post and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author CP
••••
The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)
••••
Comment Policy: As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, or personal/abusive attacks on other users. This also applies to trolling, the use of more than one alias, or just intentional mischief. Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators. Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning.
••••
Disclaimer: TLB websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.
••••
Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.