The primary reason that I am the best candidate for York Central MP is that I am talking about the issues which truly matter, and which the other candidates are not discussing. Although the Greens, and to a lesser extent the Lib Dems, do mention the arms trade and economic justice they do so as add-ons, rather than as central policies; their thinking is firmly rooted in traditional linear political thinking. They still represent the political establishment, they just add a little theatre.
According to SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) the arms trade was worth $2443 billion in 2023! An absolutely staggering sum. Furthermore, according to former ANC MP Andrew Feinstein, who is running against Sir Starmer in his Holborn constituency, in his book 2012 book The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, $1.1 trillion was missing from the Pentagon budget in 2001! That’s over $1,100 billion dollars unaccounted for, it didn’t just vanish in a puff of smoke. Do you remember the mainstream media reporting on it? Because I don’t.
Since that time the amount of money missing to corruption in the arms trade has only increased. These are staggering sums, and yet there is barely a peep from the Conservatives, Reform, Labour or the Liberal Democrats; all of them are either hand in glove with the military-industrial-complex or too scared to take them on. Talk of growth in the economy is a red herring when the amount of money disappearing on corruption and the arms trade is this big.
Economic justice must be a central plank of any party’s manifesto or why else bother voting for any of them? Oxfam say this about the wealth transfer from poor and middle class to the super wealthy during the covid pandemic, “The world’s ten richest men more than doubled their fortunes from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion —at a rate of $15,000 per second or $1.3 billion a day— during the first two years of a pandemic that has seen the incomes of 99 percent of humanity fall and over 160 million more people forced into poverty. “If these ten men were to lose 99.999 percent of their wealth tomorrow, they would still be richer than 99 percent of all the people on this planet,” said Oxfam International’s Executive Director Gabriela Bucher. “They now have six times more wealth than the poorest 3.1 billion people.” The global financial system is designed to funnel money from the poor and middle class to the super wealthy (I recommend Gary’s Economics on YouTube for a solid analysis of this phenomena) and none of the mainstream parties are prepared to restructure the global economy they will merely tinker at the edges of the car-crash that we currently have.
I am the only candidate in York Central offering a referendum on the royal family. With around 3.5 million children living in poverty in the UK I consider it reasonable, after the recent death of Queen Elizabeth, that we discuss the future of the royal family and consider our options. We UK taxpayers fund this expense and we should be allowed a say on whether the royals provide good value for our hard-earned taxes. We pay taxes, we get a say; nice and simple.
The so-called “War on Drugs” (actually a war on the poor and the working class) was declared in June 1971, the same month I was born, and so it has literally been raging my entire life. Since that time, it is fair to say the countries of Myanmar (Burma), Afghanistan, Colombia, Mexico and Albania have all become “narco-states”. Drug money has corrupted the judiciary and the politicians of those countries, and the drug gangs have killed or displaced tens of millions since 1971. No other candidates are talking about this, they are simply too scared of vested interests and scaring “middle-England”. Which groups benefit from drug prohibition? The arms trade, the prison-industrial-complex, intelligence agencies and organised crime. Does that seem reasonable to you?
Prohibition has damaged not just those narco-states but the UK as well; the number of addicts has increased massively since 1971, and drug-gang related violence has exploded. Is this what we want? More addicts on the street and in prison and increased gang violence? Only with a regulated drugs market, as exists (to a certain degree) in Holland, Portugal and Thailand, can the UK hope to tackle this issue in a meaningful manner.
No party candidates in York Central stand for the sovereignty of the individual and against mandatory digital ID, CBDCs and facial recognition technology. According to Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis western society is heading towards technofeudalism, and he is correct. What is technofeudalism? It is 24/7 surveillance not just of where you are and what you are doing, but also what you spend your money on. This constitutes gross government overreach. Whoever is elected Prime Minister may claim that increased surveillance powers are “for your safety and protection”, but this was the same phrase that the Nazi Party used to push through their agenda in 1930s Germany. Be in no doubt that technofeudalism is a very real possibility within the next electoral term.
NB. This was originally written for the York Press in the run up to the 4th July 2024 General Election, it has been expanded here.
