Labour's New Highway Robbery by Tyrant Sadiq Khan in London - And How It Was Stopped in Southampton

Labour's Highway Robbery in London

 

Desspite resistance from London residents, Labour's tyrannical Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has carried on regardless, and imposed an expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) across the whole of Greater London. 

This is despite Labour losing the Uxbridge by-election to the Tories after the resignation of the disgraced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was MP for the Uxbridge constituency. 

The Conservatives have claimed that the ULEZ policy is the main reason for them narrowly winning, in the context of losses in other by-elections and disastrous opinion polling with the Conservatives trailing Labour by over twenty percentage points in some polls. The Leader of the Labour Party Sir Keir Starmer has distanced himself from the ULEZ policy and called for a debate over the policy.

Commenting, former Southampton Independents councillor Andrew Pope has written to the Daily Echo with the following letter:

Former Councillor Andrew Pope on BBC South
on the defeated Elected Mayor plans

"Campaigning works. I feel sorry for the people of London who have had this measure imposed on them without a Referendum. The people should decide, not a tyrant Mayor of London. That's why I campaigned for a Referendum on similar measures proposed by Labour-controlled Southampton City Council.

The same fate could have befallen Southampton if the Labour-run Southampton City Council had not u-turned on their plans in 2018 after I called for a Referendum, as reported by the Daily Echo. 

I also asked questions in private and public of Council officers and again in public to the former Leader of the Council, Christopher Hammond, who resigned following Labour's defeat in the 2021 City Council elections. Hammond refused to rule out charging.

Over the last few years, including over recent weeks with the expansion of the ULEZ, residents and visitors have thanked me for campaigning against the Labour plans for Southampton. This includes new residents of Southampton who told me that they would not have moved here and contributed their work and businesses if Southampton had vehicle charging.

 

I'm also delighted to have led the campaign in Southampton to stop our City from having an Elected Mayor like Sadiq Khan. Again, as reported by the Daily Echo, I was the only Southampton councillor opposed to it with the Labour and Tory councillors voting for it like the party puppets that they were - and still are - placing their parties over the people once again.

 

I have noted Tory Hampshire County Council Leader Rob Humby calling for support for new devolution and a new split with other councils in the Region. Do these party politicians want an elected mayor? It is unclear, but they need to be honest and tell the people if they are proposing it.

 

Residents do not want another party puppet with too much power and that's what elected mayors are.

 

Sadiq Khan in London, Marvin Rees in Bristol and Joe Anderson in Liverpool are three key examples of why elected mayors are bad for residents. There are many other examples.

 

Labour and the Conservatives support elected mayors and the concentration of power to one individual. They support elected mayors because they want it for the benefit of the parties and not for the people of Southampton, London, Liverpool or Bristol.

Labour or Tory, same old story.

Residents do not support having an elected mayor - that's why Bristol residents voted in a Referendum to scrap Marvin Rees and the role of Mayor and why Liverpool has also rejected having an elected mayor. Councillors in Liverpool made that decision - a Referendum would also have led to the scrapping of an Elected Mayor.

Councillors made that decision to try to quell widespread corruption in Liverpool Labour and Liverpool City Council. Having an elected mayor failed. The damage had been done.

I'm pleased to see the rise of independent councillors in Liverpool and moves by residents  for the same in Bristol. In Croydon, bizarrely after Labour brought the Council to bankruptcy, they now have an Elected Mayor, who is a Tory and is now seeking to impose massive council tax increases on residents, when it was Labour councillors - and a Tory Government's Draconian cuts - that caused the bankruptcy. The residents were not to blame, but they are the ones suffering.

Like Liverpool has had, Croydon has had and Bristol has had, Southampton residents have had a Labour-led Council for too long that has brought the City of Southampton to its knees and to the brink of bankruptcy - something which the current Leader Satvir Kaur denies.

Having an elected mayor in Southampton, Portsmouth and across our Region - with even more concentrated powers - would make things even worse."