Month: January 2025

Democracy Deferred Surrey – Write to your councillor!

The Labour government is undertaking consultations to reorganise local government, part of which may mean the cancellation of local elections in Surrey.  This has led to an extraordinary meeting of Surrey County Council to be held on 8th January 2025. 

The Surrey Reform UK team have asked local supporters to write to their county councillors to reject the postponement of May 2025 elections, using text from the template provided below. With the meeting being held on the 8th January, time is of the essence.  Whilst written for Reform members anyone based in Surrey could use the template.  If you want to support democracy and local elections going ahead, please write out before the January 8th meeting.

The agenda of the meeting is contained here. 

__________________________________

TEMPLATE LETTER TO USE IN WRITING TO YOUR  COUNTY COUNCILLOR

__________________________________

To – Who is my SCC Councilor? Your Councillors – Surrey County Council

Cc – Leader of the Council – [email protected]

bcc – Emily Dalton Local Democracy Reporter for GetSurrey [email protected]

bcc – Reform UK Surrey – [email protected]

Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms _____

RE: Extraordinary meeting of Surrey County Council to be held 8th January 2025

As a constituent and voter in your division, I would like to stress my concerns around the details and expectations of the above meeting. I shall not comment on the Governments Devolution and Local Government Reform proposals which the Council is asked to endorse.

My concerns are;

  1. Deciding to postpone elections without consultation with ones constituents is flagrantly undemocratic.
  2. The current crop of councilors have served their fixed term of office and will hold no democratic mandate from May 2025 onwards.
  3. The proposed timeline for the completion of devolution by May 2026, in order to hold elections, is purely aspirational. There are no legally binding assurances with the actions of Westminster and their legislative calendars will now control the timelines of local democracy.
  4. With no mandate for these changes in the current Labour Governments manifesto and current councilors having reached the end of the fixed term. The public has the right to elect a new crop of councilors who may better represent the views and wishes of their constituents.

In conclusion, I ask you to consider my concerns and vote to ensure County Council elections are held in May 2025.

Yours sincerely,

Your name and address

 __________________________________

Main image from Antbex74 (talk | contribs) at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Surrey.jpg

No cash no problem – thank you for not shopping with us

Julie Carter who stood as an independent candidate in the 2024 general election and local bi-election in Acton writes about how she responds to business not taking cash.

2025 has kicked off with more “no cash accepted” at my local shops in Chiswick – namely our chemist. After we had loaded up the counter with potions and balms.  All priced higher than we could get elsewhere, but wanting to support local businesses, we immediately transferred our family prescriptions to a chemist further down the road.  One that still takes notes with the sovereign on.  When that establishment ceases to accept cash, we will find another that does. We won’t be bullied into a cashless society.

The following day I went to the local coffee shop and pub to inquire about their menu and both had same thing – No Cash!

“we had loaded up the counter with potions and balms. All priced higher than we could get elsewhere, but wanting to support local businesses, we immediately transferred our family prescriptions to a chemist further down the road. One that still takes notes with the sovereign on”

If you want to know and do more to help keep a cash alternative available, you can see the campaign at GB News, find out about ‘Keep It Cash Fridays’, and read more about the risk of losing cash and privacy here.