The following is what I said to the Council tonight. I tried not to be personal and I did try to maintain the moral high-ground. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of a couple of Councillors there tonight. Chairman Councillor Brenda Collard conducted the meeting professionally and politely however.

I will post again soon with some radical proposals that I personally believe are long overdue and desperately necessary.

But on with what I said:

“When I requested an opportunity to make a statement to this meeting, my intention had just been to explain my reasons for leaving the Conservatives in favour of the Liberal Democrats. I will still do that, but afterwards, I would also like to address some specific accusations levelled at me.

“Over the last year or so I have been struggling with my conscience: At the next General Election could I go and ring on the doors of residents of Adur and Brighton & Hove and explain to them why they should vote Conservative?

“Since it became clear to the media that the next government would be Conservative, more and more honest policies have been released. So the Conservatives will set an arbitrary limit on the number of immigrants allowed into Britain. Regardless of the fact that immigration from outside the EU is very difficult in any case, there will now be a limit set by politicians for political rather than economic or cultural reasons. Now, presumably someone’s husband will be told he cannot come to the UK; or the next Director of a large UK company will be denied access because he is that one person over the limit.

“The Conservative Party has been at sixes and sevens over its policy on the European Union promising referenda on treaties that would be illegal under international law and then, when realising this, making no decision at all about what to do about the supposed problems with EU membership. To be clear I have, in the past, been critical of the EU because like most institutions, it is imperfect, but it is better to have a policy of positive engagement than no policy and be isolated by hostility.

“A Conservative government would remove Stamp Duty for first time buyers, but this tax slows movement in the housing market at all levels and it is extraordinarily non-progressive to tax one group just because you can. The Liberal Democrats have a coherent taxation policy that will favour those who most need lower taxes.

“For the last six months, the Conservatives have been publicly confused about their stance on the Financial Services Authority. The FSA currently plans to introduce tough qualifications to try to improve the skill-level of this country’s financial advisers. The current hoo-har over Structured Products backed by Lehmans and likely future crises are the fault of advisers who do not understand how these products work resulting in poor advice being given. A Financial Stability Committee with the FSA left alone to continue where it has expertise is the Liberal policy and the right one.

“Finally, the Conservative Party website describes its policy for National Security thus: “we must defend and make the argument for our shared liberal values” while it intends to continue the fight in Afghanistan where recent laws have stripped womens’ rights back to a Taliban-level of liberality. I quote from the charity Human Rights Watch “[The law] allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying ‘blood money’ to a girl who was injured when he raped her.” A new law also allows men to deny their wives food if they fail to obey sexual demands. If these are our shared liberal values…

“I could go on about national and international politics but I shouldn’t ignore the local arena. Our Council has argued for a long time that interference by Whitehall is the one major reason that we are unable to make real, significant and valuable changes to the way we run things. The Liberal Democrats have issued strong words in this respect at a national level.

“So I left the Conservative Party in my heart earlier this year. And then I found my natural home in the Liberal Democrats.

“I had hoped to work with the Conservative administration until May for the benefit of the people of Adur District and I believed, perhaps naively, that the Tory leadership was honest and, like me, here for the benefit of the residents. But it seems holding onto power is more important.

• “Rather than issue a press release that suggested that Cllr English had missed many meetings, when he had in fact missed one;
• “Rather than issue a press release that suggested I had been deselected when actually I had not sought reselection for the reasons I just gave,

“they could have spoken of their personal disappointment in the decision Cllr English and I had taken and reassured the public that they were a steady hand to run the Council.

“I made this decision on principles and I hope, despite this bad start, we can work together in a constructive and positive way in the future.”