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As contradictory as it sounds, Confelicity will honour the LTC founders’ for an independently run council
I am making the case for our Confelicity candidates to become your Leigh Town Councillors for Highlands and Thames wards, respectively, because despite them representing a party - which as we know is against the LTC founders’ intentions - they will be completely independent to make their own decisions as they see fit. The main advantage of them running as Confelicity is that voters will know what they will get.
Independents Versus Party Candidates
All candidates are to be congratulated for putting themselves forward to serve the residents of Leigh.
Leaving yourself open to criticism and potential character assassinations are just two of the many tricky issues to navigate, and so the question is, why do it?
For the career politician the answer is obvious. They want to rise up within their chosen parties for the benefit, primarily, of themselves.
For those of us who have been around long enough, they can be easily identified. Their decisions are inconsistent across a period of time with very spurious reasons for any sharp change of mind. When the party whips make their stand, this is always the true test and one may only look at the Winter Fuel Payments as a recent example.
The concept of whips is really a method of dictatorship within our democratic system. It comes with many threats of disciplinary action if a politician follows their conscience, which is why politicians are cornered into making such obviously ridiculous excuses when manoeuvring around a policy they know is ill-thought out.
None of this is to say they don’t care and that they actually do want to do good for the people, but their primary job is to serve themselves and the party.
The career politician just needs to sound convincing; convince people to fund them; if lucky enough to win an election, vote as blindly instructed by their party; and then sell that instruction as plausibly as they can to the public.
All of this is why I have profound empathy with the founders of LTC wanting to do away with party politics and bestow the town with independent people who are only there for the good of the residents.
Presumably, they believed that being independent in of itself would make LTC independent, and whilst I agree with the sentiment there are several arguments to say it is not quite as straightforward.
Is independence, independent?
The idea that a member of a political party stands as an ‘independent’ candidate and leaves politics at the door is an interesting notion.
There is no escape from their political ties, but I don’t see anything wrong with it. Why wouldn’t we want to know as much as possible about the candidate we are about to vote for? I have already noted many comments on the socials on Looking After Leigh and Leigh on Sea Politics for Residents from people who say they know nothing about the independent candidates.
Anyone who joins a party does so because they fundamentally agree with its values and vision and wish to see the practical application of its philosophy.
Confelicity has a constitution and manifesto that all can see. There we are for all our warts to be seen, analysed and either tossed aside or lauded.
Reform UK have also thrown their hat in the ring and the same is true of them. They want to see this country turned into some kind of military-led police state with a propensity to eradicate a particular religion. I can’t see where that fits into a parish council, but at least residents know what they would be getting!
Many residents are now familiar with the Conservative councillors on Leigh Town Council, so what difference would it make if they were all to stand as independents at the next election? Would that suddenly make them independent?
Of course not.
If they were re-elected (loose term) they would run the council with the same Conservative values driving their decision-making.
Can a Party be Independent?
It’s a leading question because by some convenient coincidence of myself writing this blog, Confelicity is exactly that!
We wanted to dilute as much power from the Leader as possible, and one of those methods was to introduce the power of veto for every member. As a result, each member must vote unanimously for anything to become policy. Where we do not agree members are free to voice and vote as they wish, which makes them in the very truest sense, independent.
If our candidates were successful at the upcoming by-elections they would have complete independence over how they vote and no one from the party could change that.
In this sense, I believe we would be honouring the founders’ aspirations for an independently run Leigh Town Council.
For those interested in a whistle-stop tour of Confelicity please read the below.
Otherwise, I wish the very best of luck to all candidates and hope those who are successful are able to continue the good work for the good of Leigh.
About Confelicity
Our Candidates
Jane Wilkes is Head of Politics in a local school and has lived and worked in Leigh for 24 years. She lives in the Highlands ward and knows exactly what is needed.
To read her biography:
Tris Bembridge is outspoken, loves to challenge, and whose heart is Southend through and through.
Having grown up in Leigh he knows the place inside out, and the same is true of the Southend political scene - there are very few stones he hasn’t turned!
Registered blind, he continues to show a fighting spirit that is needed in any leadership capacity.
To read his biography:
The name
Confelicity (the word) means ‘happiness in other peoples’ happiness’. As a party, Confelicity is the local party for the national stage. Ideally, all councils across the country would have far more power and resources to take their areas forward.
The Local party
We believe that the London HQs of the main parties do not know what Southend needs, and they all take their orders from there. No amount of focus groups could ever know what we do by walking out or front doors every day!
Undivided Democracy
We believe in true democracy. Our voting system requires that every member votes unanimously for a policy to make the manifesto. However, whilst a policy is undecided, we also believe in respectful freedom of speech, and where the party has not taken a position, members are free to express themselves as they wish within legal boundaries.
Values
We believe that our values of compassion, empathy, understanding, kindness, humility and respectful freedom of speech should be the foundation of our decision making, and we must try to act accordingly.
Public Services and Business
We believe in building great public services, but this must be paid for by a thriving private sector. For this reason, we must make doing business easy.
Where we are now
We have been going for around 2 and a half years and have been in 3 local elections and the recent General Election.
Our support locally has grown over each election, albeit small, and we continue to grow. Membership is free and all Southend residents are welcome to voice and vote at our manifesto meetings.
The biggest myth is that we are the Peter Pans Party!
Understandably, there are some who think the place you work and parents you’re born to reflect one’s politics and outside interests. Our members, who live across Southend and work in various places in various industries would attest to this not being the case.
As time goes on this will inevitably subside as people begin to realise that we are just a humble set of passionate Southend residents who want to see the place where we live and work do well.
Policies
Greenbelt and Infrastructure
We must stop building on greenbelt land and green spaces. We do not want to live in a city of concrete and the effect on the environment will never be restored.
Our infrastructure can’t cope and we are being asked by the new Labour government to accommodate even more people upon our creaking public services.
In keeping with our pro-local stance, the power of parish councils cannot be underestimated. They do have advisory powers over planning and depending on who is the voice of the council, it could be made very loudly indeed. Nothing is to stop LTC drawing naked attention to any particular planning application and galvanising residents into pushing back.
The current backlash against the Salvation Army’s plans to build 2,500 homes in Castle Point is a case in point. We, of course, will be right behind that in any capacity we can.
Parking
The parking issues we cannot solve alone and I’m sure many have tried! All we can say is we will listen to all suggestions and go from there. Unless we find and fund another car park somewhere there may not be a lot that can be done.
Conduct
In terms of our conduct on the council, we will be open, honest, challenging and competent. We will listen and take on board what is being said. We will work in partnership with residents and attempt, at least, to resolve any particular disagreements. As said, compassion, empathy, understanding and kindness underpin our party and whilst there may be moments we don’t live up to that, doesn’t mean we won’t aspire to it.
Public office, however far down some might perceive that office to be, is a thankless task. There is a minimum expectation that if met receives few fan mails. As soon as it is wrong, then off we go. It is the nature of the beast and I admire anyone that wishes to put themselves in front of people to do good.
That being said, if there are mishaps, those same people must be held to account. This, unfortunately, is often what is missing. We will hold our hands up if we’re wrong, and we will fall on our swords. If we’re not good enough right now, any pride we may have will be overridden by our civic duty to do what’s best for the town.
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