Climate change is one issue that many councillors – as well as Members of Parliament – have been misled about, the group says.  This is the reason that Bath and Canterbury councils declared a “climate emergency” in 2019 and are now planning enforced traffic zoning in these two cities. 

Traffic zoning includes so-called “Low Traffic Neighbourhoods” which are being implemented across the UK.  “Low Traffic Neighbourhoods” are clearly shown to often move vehicle traffic from one area to another, typically reducing it in wealthier residential areas while increasing it in lower-income neighbourhoods including main roads which were already busy.

Councillors have been similarly misled, Hold Our Vote says, about Covid-19.  Misguidance over this issue, which is being increasingly revealed by the leaked Matt Hancock messages and many other revelations, is the reason that local councils enforced social distancing restrictions and closed down businesses during the “pandemic”.

Hold Our Vote is seeking to work with councillors who have a genuine commitment to representing the public.  The aim is to support these people in their application to stand as independent candidates in the areas where they live or work. 
The group won’t run the councils if they succeed – the elected councillors will.  Hold Our Vote will endorse current councillors who can prove that they have acted honourably for the good of the public, which means they will allow the use of their name and their pledge – which will have been signed by the independent councillors – along with their statistics and publicity materials.
 

Hold Our Vote is seeking to work with councillors who have a genuine commitment to representing the public.  The aim is to support these people in their application to stand as independent candidates in the areas where they live or work. 

The group won’t run the councils if they succeed – the elected councillors will.  Hold Our Vote will endorse current councillors who can prove that they have acted honourably for the good of the public, which means they will allow the use of their name and their pledge – which will have been signed by the independent councillors – along with their statistics and publicity materials.
 

Candidates who will be endorsed are those who truly represent the people who vote them into power – and who will promise to resign if they are asked to do so by those same people. 
 

If you’re thinking of standing in the May local elections as a candidate endorsed by Hold Our Vote, the deadline for applications is extremely close – it’s 4pm on 4 April. 
 

Asked whether their plan can work, the group says it can - the recent election win by the Dutch Farmers’ party proves it!  They believe that, after 5 May, we could be living in a very different country in the UK – in a positive sense - instead of settling for an illusory “choice” between the usual parties.  It can happen - because local councillors are often elected on the basis of just a few hundred votes.  

The issues and topics councillors have been misled on extend also to other anti-human strategies that - like  “Low Traffic Neighbourhoods” - are part of a wider, political agenda.  Hold Our Vote is concerned that councils will become actively involved in the rollout of Digital Identity, Universal Basic Income, Central Bank Digital Currency and discouraging cash.  Such strategies will not benefit the public – the opposite is the case – but councillors will be misled about the benefits and harms to their communities and the people in them, with the benefits being talked up and the harms being talked down – or just ignored. 

Hold Our Vote is also seeking volunteers to deliver leaflets to homes in Bath and Canterbury, canvass on doorsteps and talk to people in town centres.  Volunteers are needed all over the country – not just in these cities.

Hold Our Vote’s parent organisation, Not Our Future, did a successful leaflet drop in Oxford to warn people about the dangers of “Fifteen-minute cities”.  This utopian-sounding idea, in which everything is within easy reach – a short walk away – is one of the deceptive ways, the group explains, that restrictions on people’s movement and freedom are “sold” to councillors. 
 

The group discovered that most people in Oxford are opposed to Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.  Yet, as reported by the Oxford Mail, Oxfordshire County Council have put “traffic filters” in place whether the public “liked it or not”.  

One positive result, however, is – many local people now realise that they don’t live in a democracy.

More details about how the fact that most people care about other people, animals and the environment is being used against them – as well as how to apply for endorsement as a candidate in the forthcoming elections - can be found on the group’s website.  
 

Hold Our Vote says:

 

“… the real battle is to get rid of the current crop of councillors and replace them with people genuinely representing their electors.  Anything else is just window dressing.”

Given that Bath and North East Somerset council cancelled – at just a few days’ notice - a long-held booking at one of their event venues in 2022, anyone would be forgiven for thinking that the present councillors in that city do indeed need to be replaced. 
Cllr Kevin Guy, the head of the council, was responsible for withdrawing the use of the Assembly Rooms in Bath at extremely short notice from the Better Way Conference. 

Cllr Guy even said that this event – attended by doctors and scientists from all over the world and co-organised by Bath’s own Dr Tess Lawrie, who has served the National Health Service and the World Health Organisation - would bring the Council’s name and reputation into disrepute.
This bizarre statement and the cancellation itself, is revealing enough about the level to which the council serves the People of Bath.  Fortunately, the conference was able to take place at a different venue in the city.  [The conference returns to Bath on 01 June - venue is a secret!]
 

The level of ability of Bath’s councillors, however, is also in question given a most concerning quote from one current councillor in Bath.  The quote suggests that one of the skills that may be in short supply is basic spatial awareness. 

Cllr Joanna Wright was quoted on the Somerset Live website as saying - about planned changes to how people are permitted to drive around Bath - that:
 

“…your journey will be more circuitous.  We all have to reduce our vehicle movement…”

So, as Cllr Wright explained it - by making a longer journey – a more circuitous journey - drivers will be reducing their vehicle movements. 

There may be people who believe that a conference about a better and healthier world is a good thing, rather than something disreputable – and who can see a flaw in this councillor’s spatial reasoning. 

If so - once again, the deadline for applications to stand as a councillor is 4pm on Tue 4 April.

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