Jim’s Thoughts on Being an Independent

Hampshire Independents are a local political party, without manifesto, whose purpose is to support independent candidates for election in Hampshire.

Without manifesto because we believe that policies should be appropriate to local circumstances, and it’s inappropriate to impose policies centrally.

But we have principles which candidates undertake to promote (see them at https://hantsind.com/) which are very much what you would expect of a local party.

So what about my policies as an independent politician?

As a supporter of leaving the EU I have always supported independence.

One might think that in Britain this concept would be uncontroversial – we fought a world war ostensibly to retain both our own independence and to restore the same to others, yet after a long train of subterfuges and usurpations we found ourselves (in apparent defiance of our constitution) members of a supranational EU whose laws ranked above our own.

How did that come about? Both major political parties avoided a vote on the matter. Ted Heath and Harold Wilson took us into the putative arrangement by calling it a “common market” without much mentioning the ultimate destination – many years later after a “totalitarian tiptoe” of integrationist steps, the Commission published a Constitution for the EU in 2005 – on which we British never voted because (bless them!) both the French and the Dutch rejected it.

Undaunted, the Commission redrafted it as the “Lisbon Treaty” and Gordon Brown signed us up without so much as a “by your leave” (although he notably funked attending the official signing ceremony).

Happily, goaded by UKIP’s subsequent success at the polls, David Cameron blinked and promised us a referendum about leaving, and we the people voted “Out”!

Mrs May’s government then tried every trick in the book to pretend to be leaving without actually leaving, which was hilarious to observe but tragic for our democracy, now revealed as a sham where the main parties all dance to the same mysterious piper.

Our MPs do not represent “we the people”, they represent those who through funding and/or other means control our political parties.

Then along came Boris, picking up Theresa’s “Hotel California” Withdrawal Agreement and saying “Let’s get Brexit Done!”; followed by Covid, lockdowns, and all other ludicrous measures designed to make us fearful, divided, and above all, compliant no matter the cost.

Now we find the WEF-UN partnership weaponising the WHO “pandemic preparedness” treaty, to give themselves powers to override freedoms the world over; of course to “keep us safe” in the next pandemic. Given that the last real pandemic was the Spanish flu a century ago, what do we think is the real probability that we are suddenly now in for a whole succession of real pandemics?

What to do?

Independence starts with us. It’s personal. We have a remarkable organ between our ears – we should use it. Politics isn’t for everyone, but even if we don’t agree with everything above, we can see where outsourcing our thinking to the political parties takes us.

If we want freedom we will have to reclaim politics from the establishment and make it truly ours.

“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country” – JFK.

Until next time …