Interview with Michael Swadling, Pro-Brexit activist and Croydon Constitutionalists campaigner

 Interview with Michael Swadling, Pro-Brexit activist and Croydon Constitutionalists campaigner

•            Why a constitutionalist alternative in Croydon?

The Croydon Constitutionalists are a nonpartisan events and campaigning group.  The group’s purpose is to promote a Classically Liberal set of ideas and encourage others to campaign and promote individual freedom.  The name comes from a label used by some British politicians standing for Parliament in the 1920s, instead of the more traditional party labels.  The term was meant to signify that the adherents believed in the principles of English constitutional government through electoral politics.

 

•            What are the main issues you campaign for?

As a group we aim to run events promoting Classical Liberal ideas and promote parties that are broadly pro individual liberty.  In practical terms this means we host a libertarian drinks each month, we have held street stalls with the TaxPayers’ Alliance asking for restraint in council spending.  We have held hustings with parties including The Heritage Party, SDP, Christian Peoples Alliance, UKIP, Libertarian Party and others.  Broadly we are in favour of Brexit, Low Taxes, Free Speech, Free Markets, and Rational science not climate alarmism.  We try to find national organisations or groups we can partner with on a local level to campaign for these things. 

 

Our local borough council (Croydon Council) has gone onto de facto bankruptcy over the past couple of years with the issuing of a Section 114 notice (basically a requirement to be bailed out by central government).  We have spent a considerable amount of time campaigning against the overspend and misspend of Croydon Council.   

 

•            I see you have been involved with the Leave campaign, how would you analyse the government's approach to Brexit and the deal they have secured?

I ran the Croydon Vote Leave campaign and with the help of many others we ran a large campaign across the borough.  The Johnson government came in having to secure a deal from the appalling negotiation May’s government had undertaken.  I would have preferred a clean break from the EU, and a new relationship on WTO terms.  I don’t believe it’s possible to negotiate a reasonable deal with a party that doesn’t believe you are an equal.  I believe the EU regards the UK as someone of a renegade province and it these circumstances it is not possible to negotiate as equals.  Johnson’s government was elected to ‘Get Brexit Done’ and given the backdrop of a parliament and wider establishment determined to stop the will of the people he needed to make the best of the situation at hand.  For all the problems of the deal, Brexit has been ‘done’ for Great Britain, it however has not been completed for the United Kingdom, with Northern Ireland staying inside the Customs Union and in effect in the EU.  The EU has shown time and time again that it does not want to act in good faith regarding the movement of goods between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.  We need to invoke article 16 and withdraw Northern Ireland from the Customs Union, to finally get Brexit done.  This will create some problems for trade within the island of Ireland, but we have two separate countries here, and some problems relate to separate tax regimes exist already.  It’s common for friendly governments with separate customs regimes to operate along open borders (see most of the US/Canada border), there is no reason why Northern Ireland / Republic of Ireland could not be the same. 

 

•            What would be your analysis of the current situation of the Conservative Party?

From the moment the Conservatives won an 80-seat majority in 2019, they were always likely to win the next election (likely to be in 2023 / 2024).  Even recent setbacks in the polls have owed more to 2019 Conservative voters moving to undecided than moving to Labour.  So, no matter what else happens, it is still likely that the Conservatives will win the next election.  The question I would ask is what is the point of the Conservative Party?  What is the purpose of the Johnson government?  Initially the Johnson government ‘got Brexit done’, this mattered but they have been reluctant to move beyond the initial phase of this and failed to invoke Article 16 to release Northern Ireland from the EU. 

 

Lockdown was a disaster, we had a plan for pandemics and similar to Sweden it involved no lockdown. The Conservative Party choose to steal our freedom for 2 years, destroy our economy, create huge NHS backlogs, set back childhood development for all ages, and massively worsen the countries mental health.  All of this was done possibly with the best intentions, but with no good outcome.  When you compare countries with harsh lockdowns to those without lockdown, death rates have no correlation.  Lockdowns didn’t work on Covid, they did however cause untold damage to the nation.  We are now seeing the Conservatives preside over a period high taxation, high public spending, record house prices (leading to fewer homeowners) and high costs of living (due to Net Zero policies they have pursued).  What is the purpose of a Conservative Government if we have high tax, high spend, high cost of living and low home ownership?  The Conservatives risk losing their core support and in the long term this will damage them with fewer activists coming forward, and a smaller base to rely on.

 

More recently Partygate is damaging to the Johnson regime.  PM Johnson has proven he thinks the rules do not apply to him only to us.  It’s not clear why in the future anyone should follow a law from this government, since no one believes the government will follow them, themselves.  Johnson has found popularity again with his handling of the Ukraine crises, but I do believe this will be temporary as it becomes clear his government still suffer from a basic contempt for the British public.