The first job for any government is to keep us safe. Our freedom and safety can never be taken for granted. In order to keep Britain safe we need two things. One is a strong economy to pay for our defence and the other is the political will. With the Conservatives you get both and we are committed to the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defence and to increase spending on security services. Labour give you neither and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party is a threat to our national security.
We know that Jeremy Corbyn would scrap our nuclear deterrent and would prefer to pull out of NATO. He has even talked about abolishing our Armed Forces. He has also associated with some very unsavoury characters that he has described as friends - namely the prescribed terrorist organisations of Hamas and Hezbollah. He has even described the death of Osama Bin Laden as “a tragedy” and Labour’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has praised the “bombs and bullets of the IRA”.
Labour’s actions as well as their words also need highlighting. Jeremy Corbyn has voted in Parliament against 13 anti-terrorism laws and he has opposed security legislation drawn up in response to the terror attacks of 9/11 and 7/7. Recently, Jeremy Corbyn and the majority of Labour MPs voted against targeting ISIS in Syria in the wake of the Paris attacks.
The Labour Party here in Crawley are Jeremy Corbyn’s foot soldiers and are increasingly forcing his policies onto Crawley Borough Council. This week at the Full Council meeting on Wednesday, they are formally recommending the Council has an official financial boycott of the UK defence industry, which includes companies providing skilled jobs for Crawley residents in Manor Royal. This militancy reminds me of the bad old days of the ‘Crawley Nuclear Free Zone’ streetsigns of the 1980s. My message is simple - our local Council must be about providing good local services for Crawley and not be a vehicle for advancing extreme politics. Only the Conservatives can stop Labour’s loony-left politicisation of our local Council here in Crawley.
Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group
14th December 2015