I have lived in Warley for more than thirty years now, working in and around West Bromwich for the majority of them.
I am a long way from being “a career politician”, in fact up until 2014, my career was entirely in Computing/IT.
My first employment was with Bass in West Brom, in 1986, as a trainee, I eventually worked my way up to Technical Support Manager, have since been made redundant twice (once voluntarily), and at various points, been ‘Permanent’, ‘Contract’ and ‘Part time’, employed as a Technical Consultant.
For a long time now I have been convinced that locally and nationally we are being consistently let down by our leaders, who no longer understand, or care, what the working man (and woman) thinks, wants and expects from them,
– rather than simply sit and complain about what our politicians are doing, or not doing, I decided to join UKIP, and try to ‘make a difference’ myself.
I initially stood for counsellor for Bristnall(where I live), in the 2014 local elections, and despite being the first UKIP candidate to do so in this ward, achieved a relatively close second place.
I was then selected to represent UKIP in the constituency of Warley (also the constituency in which I have lived since 1990) in the General Election, held on May 7th, 2015, where I was narrowly edged out of second place.
In 2016 I stood in the West Midlands Police and Crime Commission election, and received over 93,000 votes.
In 2017 I was UKIP’s candidate to be the first West Midlands Metro Mayor, at one point polling 17%, until a General Election was suddenly called, and overnight dropped to 6%. Instead of being about who would make the best Mayor, do the best job for the West Midlands, it became overnight a case of “we have got to vote Tory to keep Labour out”.
Two party politics kicked in, and usual, the least worst option of Tory and Labour got elected. Most of our problems nationally can be laid at the same door.
I resigned from UKIP at the end of 2017, as it was clear that the party was heading down a very dark road.
In 2018 I was very active within Leave Means Leave,
– and was then very heavily involved in the Brexit Party, since “its first beginnings”, in the early part of 2019.
I was involved in the setting up of Reform UK in February 2021, deeply concerned about the medium and long term effects repeated lockdowns would have on our economy and the mental health of our nation.
Neither of which seemed to bother politicians within so-called “mainstream” parties in the slightest. They were much too busy printing/creating money which didn’t previously exist, or borrowing huge amounts of it, and handing it out to “all and sundry”. Well not quite all, three million self employed people received little or nothing. Recent governments don’t like people to be self employed, much harder to control.
Years of rampant inflation and hardship seemed almost certain to be the inevitable result.
So I stood in May 2021 I stood for Reform UK in the West Midlands Metro Mayor elections, and attempted to make this point, as an “anti lockdown” candidate.
Unfortunately it turned out the vast majority of people were actually quite happy to be paid to do nothing but sit at home for months, and my message largely “fell on deaf ears”.
Fair to say I was ridiculed and laughed at by a fair number of people.
“Interest rates and inflation will never go up very much, so there’s nothing to worry about. Just shut up, sit at home with everyone else, watch Netflix, drink beer and order takeaways”.
Well, after a year of doubling and tripling energy prices, food prices rising by 18%, mortgage rates ramping up from 1.5% to 6%,
– to borrow a phrase from Mr Nigel Farage, “they’re not laughing now are they…?”
Of course lockdowns eventually ended. However the threats to our personal liberty did not.
If anything they have grown more and more serious.
Our ability to protest has been all but closed down. The Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Act means the government can order “a single person protest” to be ended by police, if it’s “too noisy”.
But they also want to have complete control over what we can say online.
The Online Safety Bill which is about to “go onto the statute books” (October 2023), will make the UK the second most monitored and censored nation in the world, behind only China.
Makes you proud doesn’t it? “What an accolade!”
All “for own safety” of course.
Every totalitarian regime in history, across the world, has claimed the stripping of its citizens most basic freedoms to be
– “for their good”
Social Media companies will be obliged to rapidly shut down anyone from the UK posting “misinformation” on their platforms,
– where misinformation is defined as “statements not inline with current government position on a subject”.
In other words governments will be allowed to post dangerous nonsense, like “if you take a Covid-19 vaccine you can’t contract the virus”,
– but if you post something like “Covid-19 vaccines may not be as safe as the government is claiming, because hardly anyone knows about the Yellow Card system” (for recording adverse reactions)
– and those that do, rarely if ever think it’s worth recording them, so there are almost certainly massively more adverse reactions being experienced by people taking them than government statistics are showing,
– you will highly likely be banned/prevented from using Social Media for a prolonged period of time.
“Wrong Think” offence committed.
And punishments may not be confined to removing your Social Media access, if the government achieves its aim of removing cash, making us all reliant upon programmable CDBCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies)
– then “at the press of a button”, they will be able to prevent you from buying meat, alcohol, anything they choose.
Or perhaps your digital money will become invalid at all bus and train stations,
– having successfully priced you out of being able to afford transport of your own, on the basis that it will somehow “save the planet”, if the UK eliminates its 1% of Global CO2 emissions (whilst China proceeds to wipe out that 1% in just a couple of years of its own increases…)
Reform UK is the only party which is prepared to stand up for the rights of coming generations to enjoy something like the lifestyle that those of us aged 50 plus were lucky enough to benefit from.
All the others are happy to manage the steady decline of our country, and the destruction of pretty much all we hold dear.
On a more personal note…
I love to travel, play cricket, chess, and also enjoy gardening and taking long walks and bike rides with “the most energetic dog in the world” (probably), a three year old border collie called Rudi.
I like to think that cricket has helped mould my strongly held principles of fair play, and that chess has developed my strategic skills,
There was no doubt that the ability to govern ourselves was being slowly drip fed over to the European Union, and that very soon it would have reached the point where, if we didn’t “escape”, it would have quite simply been too late,
– what we currently know as Great Britain, would have been dissolved/broken up, our hard fought freedoms and precious democracy would have been lost forever, and we would have simply been run from Brussels as a group of EU regions.
I firmly believe that eventually the EU will become so large, bloated, bureaucratic and riddled with corruption that it will collapse into a bankrupt mess, leaving its member countries in exactly the same state, or the Euro currency will fail so dramatically that it brings the EU down with it,
– I am proud to have played my part in motivating the borough of Sandwell to vote to Leave by a majority of 2 to 1, and in assisting the Brexit Party put such severe pressure on the Conservative government that it had no choice other than to abide by the 2016 EU Referendum result. Eventually.
I would describe myself as a Libertarian, and a strong advocate of Direct Democracy,
– I believe that wherever possible the people should be trusted to decide their future, and the future of their nation. Not a privileged elite.
It’s time to replace Political Correctness with Respect and Common Sense,
– time to replace career politicians, who have never had a real job, and are largely only really concerned with being re-elected and furthering their own career and interests,
– with people who know what it’s like to work long hours for very little pay, to go through the process of being made redundant,
– but who also happen to care passionately about this country and its future.
It’s time to replace all the lies, secrecy and spin,
– with openness and transparency, and to do this at both a local, and national level.
It’s time to massively Reform politics in the UK, to really Change Politics For Good,
– it’s time not just to take back control of our borders, but our entire country.
It’s time for Reform UK.
Pete Durnell 