Eight councillors have quit the Skegness Urban District Society (SUDS) and joined Reform UK ahead of the Lincolnshire County Council elections. We asked SUDS founder Danny Brookes why he is making the move and get reaction from Coun Colin Davie - the Conservative councillor he will be fighting in the LCC elections.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Reform UK has gained the Skegness Urban District Society in the latest announcement ahead of the Lincolnshire County Council elections in May.
00:11Danny, there's been speculation for a few weeks that SUDs were moving over to Reform UK.
00:19You've now announced that this is so. Can you tell me why?
00:26Well, the political landscape is changing now and a local party is going to have less power.
00:32So if you want to have more power for the residents of our area, then we need to get a seat at the bigger table.
00:38We've now found a national party that actually aligns with our views, which we've not had in the past.
00:46So now we feel that we can align with those and they support Lincolnshire like we do.
00:53Now, when you formed in 2018, you were very clear that you were non-political and you wanted to fight for local people
01:03and against the assets that had been taken away from the town to fight for those, try and get some back.
01:11Do you think you've been able to achieve any of that during your time?
01:17We've achieved a lot. I mean, we've kept the council tax down in Skegness, well below the levels that it was in previous years.
01:24But like I say, a lot of the stuff that we want to achieve is you need to be on the county council to achieve these sort of things.
01:32And the only way to get elected onto county council is if you're in a bigger party, so to speak,
01:37because local parties are great for the local area, but you can't have the say or the power to actually change things.
01:46Now, you are standing against Councillor Colin Davie in the county council elections in the Inghamalls rural ward.
01:56He is a local and he has been one of, as you know, you must be aware of, biggest critics during the past few years.
02:08What would you say to him now?
02:11Well, he's been a critic of us because he doesn't like anyone unless they're in the Conservative Party.
02:17Well, unfortunately, times change. The political landscape changes.
02:22And, you know, people year after year, decade after decade have seen what the Conservative County Council has done to our area.
02:31The roads are riddled with potholes. There's no bypasses coming in.
02:36And, you know, people have had enough and they want change. And that's why we're offering change.
02:43Is this the end of Suds?
02:46It's the end of Suds right now because we're aligning with a bigger party and that bigger party will give us more power to do what we want to do.
02:56And so the residents are still going to get the same representation as they've always had.
03:02But we've now got the big brother party looking after us. So, yeah, I think Suds will finish, but reform will continue.
03:13It's always been a huge honour to serve the people in the area I was born into.
03:19I'm always respectful of the way people feel about life and society.
03:27I know people are very unhappy at the moment with the way the direction of travel of their country in particular.
03:34They expressed that last year, but that doesn't change anything.
03:38We now have a government which is, I would say, extreme. And that's probably being kind.
03:46I think it is a government that hates Lincolnshire and places like Lincolnshire.
03:51It is a government that hates the countryside and hates the fact that we have farming as one of our key things.
04:00Farming has been under attack like I've never seen any sector attacked before.
04:05It's a disgrace.
04:08And obviously we are inundated with pylons, solar farms, substations and all the other rubbish of Ed Miliband's Net Zero campaign.
04:19So people don't feel happy, but elections on May 1st are about local issues.
04:27The mayor or the councillor is not going to change the government's position on immigration or on any of the big national issues.
04:37What you're doing is voting for people who are going to fight and stand up for the local community and have a clear plan to do so.
04:45Four years ago, when we had elections last time, Conservatives on the county council had a very clear manifesto.
04:53We talked about what we're going to do, how we're going to do it, and what areas would be protected and what areas we would look for savings in.
05:02Simply because you cannot propose to do something without justifying how you're going to do it.
05:08So the problem in local elections, most political parties, and I know this will be the case with my friends at Suds and Stednest who are now becoming reform,
05:16they'll just talk about the national issues and expect everyone to jump on the Nigel Farage bandwagon.
05:22That isn't the answer. The answer is how are you going to manage the council so you set council tax as low as possible.
05:29We are in a cost of living crisis. We've set one of the lowest council tax rates in the country this year.
05:34We're one of the lowest council tax areas in the UK because we manage things well.
05:39We have our own department of government efficiency. We've taken over £400 million in savings out of the council in the last decade.
05:48That money has been reinvested into supporting the services that people rely on.
05:53We have a massive elderly population on the coast.
05:56Our care bill alone, the care costs of the council cover £280 million a year.
06:03That has to be done. We can't leave vulnerable people on their own. We have to support them.
06:09And we do so very well. Education is an excellent service.
06:13Most of our services are graded good or outstanding.
06:16We're fixing more miles of road now than we've ever done.
06:20And we're fixing them in a better way than we've ever done.
06:22There's always more to be done. But the answer is, you know, I'm very happy to debate publicly with any political party.
06:31But I want to debate on what they're going to do and how they're going to do it.