I have little or no interest in the Euro elections taking place next Thursday and it may not have escaped resident's attention that I have not been actively campaigning for them. Parliament should have delivered on the referendum result by now and we should have left the EU in March. It shouldn't come as a shock that lots of people who voted in the EU referendum will use the elections next week to send a message.
For what it's worth, I think people should vote in these elections, whatever their view. Democracy is a precious thing and we should always use this right which is denied to so many in other parts of the world.
As a Leaver, I also wanted to express why I think it is vital those of us who voted Leave take part in these elections. Many people who voted Leave have told me that they will not vote again because they feel their vote to Leave the EU has been ignored. They are not wrong, Parliament has so far refused to implement the will of the public.
However, to not vote would be to give those who are trying to overturn the result of the referendum exactly what they want! As we saw after the recent local elections, the Lib Dems doing a bit better than they had in the past was interpreted as some sort of evidence that the public wanted to overturn the referendum result. That's despite the fact the Lib Dems only got 18 percent of the vote and many Lib Dems elected as Councillors avoided talking about Brexit at all!
Leave voters must vote in these elections and they must vote in a way that sends a clear message that Brexit must be delivered. That is what I will be doing next Thursday and I urge all residents to vote, and I especially urge Leave voters to get out and send a clear message to MPs at Westminster that we want Brexit delivered and that we will not tolerate MPs who promised to deliver Brexit going back on their word. Most of them were elected on that platform after all!
A few residents have all said that they have thrown out or not received their polling cards. Remember, you do not need your polling card to vote, you can give your name and address at your polling station
Andrew