• WE had New Labour, now we need New Tories. After standing in Gospel Oak as the Conservatives candidate for two by-elections 2017, I decided to resign as the candidate for the upcoming election in May this year.

Those who read this newspaper may remember that after the disastrous snap election last year, I called for “Conservatives shift left!”

I joined the Conservatives as it was a party where open, liberal people wanted to shape the future, and a local association that was always the Tory front-runner of those positions.

A political attitude that is like no other at home in Camden. This has changed over the last few months. It is the right wing that has been able to expand and take over more and more relevant positions.

Activists, councillors, and candidates who did not want to surrender to that right wing often saw no way out but to resign, quit and be silenced. There are great people in the local Tories who deserve our all support. Camden Conservatives set the motto that: “Brexit does not matter locally”.

Camden is home to thousands of European citizens (yes, and still they are allowed to vote) with a multiplicity of friends who value them as neighbours and know how much our country benefits from them.

It is the Camden Conservatives saying that these people play no role and are of no interest locally and therefore irrelevant. In the May elections, all residents, (also those of European descent, such as myself) democratically, decide who represent them.

A party who decides they do not want to represent all residents, must face consequences on the ballot box, even more from such an open and cohesive community like we are in Camden.

I can’t represent the actual politics of the Camden Conservatives in front of voters, and it would be hypocritical of me if I would say otherwise. Hate and assault, division, xenophobia and belief in one’s own superiority, are challenges of our time. All that happens also here! Locally! In Camden!

I see and hear this every day and recently faced assaults myself. Waiting for the bus at South End Green I was attacked for being a European citizen; someone urinated on my door and yelled in the most ridiculous way at me.

I am at a point that I not just want to, but I must, fight for what is the life of so many and myself, being a proud European citizen who has a tremendous passion for London and our great UK.

Someone who moved here many years ago and always felt not just welcomed but part of the society, I am at home here in Camden and I can’t imagine calling any other place “home”.

I will fight for a future where being at home is not questioned or requires permission. I believe we can get our great nation back, which until yesterday was known in the world as one of the most friendly and cohesive – a Britain that was praised as an example of togetherness, culture and open towards the future. Let’s stand together and let us take our Great Britain back off the right.

I also want to give a promise to the residents of Gospel Oak. Resigning as a candidate for the Conservatives, doesn’t mean I will walk away from you as so many did over the last years.

You Oakies have changed me for the better. I’ve come to appreciate the value of so many different people, learned something about well-working cohesion and neighbourhood, learned to take a stand for people in a great community, and found new friends in Gospel Oak.

It should not be that we only have the options, between an ideological left and a radical right. Let’s work on that and let’s #STAY in contact. marxdemorais@gospel-OK.uk

MARX DE MORAIS
Yorkshire Grey Place, NW3