Former Labour Councillor defects to Conservatives

Former Labour Councillor defects to Conservatives

The issue of elected representatives defecting to other political parties is not news but it is a characteristic of a degraded political system.

When people go to the polls, they make a conscious decision to support a political programme. Some time down the line an elected representative makes a personal decision to stop representing the political party he or she was elected to represent.

It has happened to many political parties including the so called mainstream political parties, UKIP and also the British National Party and regardless of the fact that it is accepted as part of normal life in politics I find such events highly questionable.

UKIP had two London Assembly Members that later on decided to stop representing UKIP. The British National Party had Richard Barnbrook elected London Assembly Member only to lose him when he declared himself independent.

Now it is the turn of the Labour Party that lost a Councillor when the said Councillor became independent and later became a Conservative Party councillor.

Everything comes down to the concept of what we consider to be Democracy. I reckon there is a profound democratic deficit when elected representatives turn against those they were elected to represent.

Since this kind of situation will not suddenly vanish, I just wrote these lines to talk about issues that matter and that I believe are very much part of the reasons why so many people no longer believe in Democracy.

When I stood as a London Mayoral Candidate and London-wide List Candidate, I and others signed  contracts stating the obvious: if elected, we would represent the British National Party and respect the will of those who willingly chose to support us with their ballots.

We perfectly knew that such contracts couldn't possibly be enforcible in a Court of Law but they proved our commitment to democratic principles.

On May 4th, 2012, 62 out of 100 Londoners did not vote in the Election. Yes, the Mayor of London and the London Assembly were elected in an election in which merely 38% of all those entitled to vote actually voted. This shows very clearly the poor state of British Democracy adding to this mass media manipulation to make things even worse.