Manifesto

1. This election is real. The people of Clacton should not be treated as a joke by a dustbin.
   
   

2. This election offers the people of Clacton the opportunity to express a view on one of the central issues of our politics: whether it is right to stay out of the European Union.
   
   

3. Rejoining the EU would do more for the UK economy than any other single measure proposed by any of the parties.
   
   

4. It would put us back on a stable path to growth and allow international markets to strengthen sterling and reduce our interest rates. These are two key steps towards lowering the cost of living for people here in Clacton.
   
   

5. Even with higher growth and lower inflation, our national debt is far too high. We need to get control of our welfare spending, and the biggest issue in this is the enormous burden on the NHS from an inadequately structured care system. We need to create a national care service with a proper career structure that involves sufficient medical training to relieve the strain on our highly trained, highly expensive and overstretched NHS staff. With its large retirement community, Clacton should be a centre of national excellence and the focus of the creation of such a service.
   
   

6. Britain needs to continue to introduce renewable energy, such as solar, wind and wave, as these are cheaper and more strategically secure than fossil fuels. We are not using the key advantage of renewables: we are failing to make the most of their natural benefits because we are not creating local energy networks. For example, Clacton should benefit from the wind farms off Clacton’s shore rather than continue to be forced to be part of a national pricing structure.
   
   

7. Young people in Clacton should have the opportunity to work and train in our critical hospitality industry right across Europe, something they are now denied by Brexit. Then, coming home, they can raise the standard of the whole British hospitality sector, which is so critical to Clacton and Frinton's local economy.
   
   

8. Clacton could be a really great place for young families to bring up children and have a high quality of life. Parts of this constituency already have one of the highest qualities of life in Britain, but poor communications, especially poor internet and slow trains to London and Colchester, inhibit it from becoming a centre for work and commuting. These issues must be urgently addressed.
   
   

9. When we voted for Brexit, free trade seemed secure and free from expensive tariffs impacting everyone's pocket; the United States was a benign ally; and Russia, with China behind her, had not been revealed as a direct threat to our whole way of life. Now the challenges arising in Asia and Africa confront our whole civilisation. We live in a world where only economies and politics of scale guarantee security. We need to reunite with the rest of our continent in the face of these unprecedented threats, to guarantee freedom and prosperity.
   
   

10. At root, the European issue is about our identity as a nation. We need to assert our European identity against its erosion by non-European forces. We can only rebuild Britain if we believe in who we are. Now we must be British and European.