Below is an expanded version of the text from my campaign flyer Adrian Hart for Queens Park.
As a community filmmaker for two decades Adrian Hart centered his work on youth projects, collaborative work with refugee and asylum seekers and the production of anti-racist educational materials for schools. He currently divides his time between video work for the campaign Don’t Divide Us, writing projects (see www.adrianhart.com) and an array of neighbourhood initiatives. He is an active member of the Free Speech Union and an author at the Brighton Society.
In 2018, alongside a many local residents, Adrian opposed the overdevelopment of the Edward Street quarter and its singular lack of affordable housing. This resistance united and galvanized residents in spite of the fact that council planning committee members (Labour, Green and Tory) ensured the scheme was approved. Our actions resulted in the establishment of Amex Area Neighbourhood Action Forum. After a battle with the council in 2019 we eventually secured the lease to what is now the thriving White Street Community Garden on Edward Street. Our local ward councillors had told us it wasn’t possible but people power proved them wrong!
500 votes in 2019!
“I ran as an independent in 2019 but this time I am proud to be part of a new movement of independent candidates standing in wards across the city. You may already have your party choice for May 4th in mind but you deserve the chance to lend one of your votes to a candidate that is independent of mainstream party politics. As your Independent Councillor, free from the control of national party machines, I will be exclusively dedicated to Queens Park constituents and the challenge of restoring good governance to Brighton and Hove”.
Adrian Hart
Brighton & Hove Independents candidates have no allegiance, either recently or currently, to national political parties. Its candidates have their own views on the issues facing society and the world but these are set aside when we meet to discuss what the people of this city want and need. Indeed, we believe that a diversity of background, viewpoints, experience and skills make for better group decisions.
Our MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle states that Queens Park voters should see May 4th as an opportunity to protest and “send a message” to government. Queens Park Labour candidates Tristram Burden and Chandni Mistry look great (as did our current ward councillors in 2019) but if elected will they divert to party political concerns? Will they be obliged to deprioritise the concerns of the residents they represent? Lloyd tells us that the overarching factor for voters on May 4th is determining who is “best placed” to form an administration and “plan for a change in government”.
Brighton & Hove Independents wish Tristram, Chandni and all the Queens Park candidates well in the forthcoming elections. Voters will decide. However, we stand in opposition to the utterly flawed idea that the political ambitions of the national parties best serve the needs of towns and cities. In fact, we think the party-focused administrations since 2019 have run Brighton & Hove into the ground. Green Party priorities have little to do with the things voters actually want. The city looks dirty and neglected. Determined to roll-out self-serving, ill-conceived eco-policies whilst slavishly adopting (without proper consultation) any divisive brand of identity politics on offer, Green Party gesture politics is a dead end for the city. [See my post on the tagger Johnny Crew here].
The change our city needs.
Our goal is to improve the running of Brighton & Hove through the election of candidates
with the life and work experiences needed to manage Our City.
Unshackled from national party politics, independent councillors will work together –
and with any party councillor willing to join forces – to put Our City First.
Election blog posts:
- The Crew Connection (wide awake tagger, fast asleep council)
- Queens Park FAQs
- Collision with Reality: Have Brighton’s Greens got trapped inside a big fat lie?
pleasure to read this: i will think carefully when i vote on the day