At the last General Election, we lost our Saffron Walden constituency, with Uttlesford being split between two MPs, the bulk of which is now under the uninspired, disconnected North West Essex “branding”. We once fought hard to retain our constituency name; however, there wasn’t a fight that time, and in the end, we lost our name. It’s a sad trend of disconnection we have seen in our politics for a while. We’re losing our identity.
Now under the guise of “efficiency” our local Councils of Uttlesford (formed in 1974) and Essex County Council (formed in 1938) have been thrown into the bin, now to be replaced by the “West Essex” Council, which sees us lumped in with Harlow and Epping as part of a new mega-Council, and of course alongside directly elected (and well paid) Mayor of “Greater Essex” that nobody outside of political circles actually wants. Of course, all these changes are being driven by people in London, who grow more disconnected from the rest of the country by the day. Even the “promise” of fewer politicians from these changes appears to be nonsense.
The truth is, our democracy is moving further away from us, the ordinary people. These changes, both at the constituency level and with the bolting on of rural Uttlesford onto Epping and Harlow, will result in less direct representation for the people and more barriers between the electorate and their democracy. There will be more hiding by the politicians, happily sitting in the distance, enjoying less accountability, happily enabling more waste than before, which is exactly why the politicians love it.
We need less Londonisation of our politics and more local accountability. We deserve much better representation than this mess of an amalgamation we have been offered by London.
Naturally, we, the people, were never asked if we wanted these changes or not, because they knew what the answer would be.
