Saturday, March 07, 2020

Former Brexit Party parliamentary candidate joins Lib Dems

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Who? Where? What?

Kent Online reports:
Evie Martin, who stood as the Brexit candidate for Sittingbourne and Sheppey in the last general election, has joined the Liberal Democrats. 
She said: “Although I disagreed with the Lib Dems on Brexit, I have always supported their key policies on electoral reform, environmental improvements and affordable housing."
In fact Martin did not stand for the Brexit Party anywhere. Because, as the article later admits, she was ordered to stand down for Nigel Farage to help the Conservatives.

Some will be aghast at this news, but I remember Peter Sloman's concept of 'the liberalism of the left-behind'.

When I blogged about it just after the general election, I wrote:
In the far-off days when I was a Liberal activist and then councillor, there was a definite populist strand to our campaigning. 
We were the people who stood up for the unfashionable end of town. We were the people who stood up for the voters against council ruling groups and senior officers. 
I remember doing a survey on council house repairs here in Harborough and being told the next day that the council offices were thronged with people we had encouraged to make complaints. I was proud of that.
If there is to be a Liberal Democrat revival, I suspect it will involve adopting something of this approach again and not involve browbeating people who disagreed with us on Brexit.

3 comments:

crewegwyn said...

Spot on.

EU gone (for some years) so let's go back to being liberals.

Not EU fetishists.

nigel hunter said...

Farage (turn head to side and spit, on the grass of course!) tells his supporters to stand down for Tories so they can wreck the country. Where is the money that they paid to become supporters?
Anyway;now that the EU is on the back burner ,yes, let us get back to 'stirring it'for the masses.

Whilst we are at it campaign for more money for rubbish collecting so that those who fly tip can send it to the Council Tip WITHOUT CHARGE rather than destroy the countryside.

Frank Little said...

Both Evie Martin and her partner Ben are in the very worthwhile business of restoring and renovating buildings. Their company is commercially viable and puts its accounts in on time. With that background, it is surprising that she was taken in by the scoundrel Farage. Ben Martin is a Liberal Democrat, formerly Independent, councillor for Priory ward on Swale BC, by the way.