After last week’s local elections the Rye and Winchelsea seat on Rother District Council was won by Reform UK with 531 votes. In this article a Rye shopkeeper, who doesn’t want to be named, says Reform is bad news for the town.
I am genuinely heartbroken by this result. A win for Reform UK is contrary to everything I believe our town stands for, and I am astounded that we have come to this.
Rye’s character and economy depend, in no small part, on being a place that welcomes visitors, new residents, and a diversity of voices. It is a town of culture, arts, and brilliant independent businesses, and that identity is not incidental. It is the reason people come here, invest here, and choose to make their lives here. Reform UK’s politics are at odds with all of that, and make no mistake: this result will not help our businesses or our reputation. It will damage them.
Most voters at the moment are driven by things that feel close to home: the cost of living, immigration, potholes – valid worries, even if the solutions Reform are offering are, in my view, anything but. But I’d ask every one of those 531 voters to think carefully about what they have actually endorsed, because it affects this town directly. Many of our residents and visitors are exactly the people Reform’s rhetoric is aimed at, but this diversity is also what makes this town worth living in.
This country has never felt more divided and the 531 people who voted Reform UK have voted for, whether they intended to or not, more of that division. I believe most people just want peace and as easy a life as possible – and honestly, who can blame them? But that is not what Reform UK delivers, and I’m not sure all of those voters have fully thought through what they were signing up for. Aren’t we all entitled to peace and an easy life, no matter who we are?
So let’s be clear about what Reform UK actually is. This is a party that wants to scrap the Equalities Act and abandon net zero in favour of expanding fossil fuel use. Across the UK, there’s also a record of racist, misogynistic and homophobic behaviour. So if you voted for them, you are – whatever your reasons – lending your support to every abhorrent thing they have said and done. That is just how endorsement works, whether we like it or not. Discrimination, division and hate don’t only thrive because of the people who practise it, but because of the decent people who have decided it isn’t their problem.
I refuse to accept that this is our majority, or who we are as a town. I hope, for all our sakes, that the residents of Rye who decided to vote for Reform UK ask themselves that question seriously. We are surely better than this, are we not?
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Image Credits: Jim Linwood https://www.flickr.com/photos/brighton/2595970508 CC https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/.
Sadly to hear the views of an anonymous shop keeper, Despite whether people like Reforms policy, Dan Bradley has set his stall for Rye, to represent all people of this town despite their politics, will it make any difference to the people of this town or our visitors, Of CourseNot.lets get behind our newly elected councillor, and be positive,and enough of the Negativity.