Liberal Democrats march for West Sussex’s right to vote in May

Liberal Democrats from across West Sussex marched through Chichester city centre to County Hall protesting West Sussex County Council’s Conservative Leadership request to postpone May’s county elections. 

Lib Dem MPs Jess Brown-Fuller of Chichester, John Milne of Horsham, and Alison Bennett of Mid Sussex led the protest march, at the end of which residents from across West Sussex delivered a ballot box to County Hall, representing residents' right to elections in May.  The Conservative leadership at West Sussex County Council wrote to The Government on 10th January requesting the postponement of county elections. 

While the government has announced a major reorganisation of local authorities, which will result in the merger of county and district councils, the process will likely take months, or even years, to finalise. In the meantime, elections should continue to take place to ensure democracy is maintained, the protestors claimed. 

During a West Sussex County Council debate on the issue Conservative councillors had argued that low turnouts in previous elections as well as the cost of elections were additional reasons to postpone the May elections.

“Postponing elections based on arguments that the electorate isn’t interested in voting and elections cost money is a disdainful approach to democracy,” said one protestor.  

The reasons for postponing the elections were also rejected by Jess Brown-Fuller, MP for Chichester, who said, “their four-year term is up. They don’t have a plan, there hasn’t been a consultation and suspending democracy under the guise of local government reorganisation is an insult to the voters. This week I will present a petition in Parliament to call for elections in West Sussex to go ahead.”

Fellow Lib Dem MP, John Milne, who represents Horsham, said, “As the Deputy Prime Minister has made clear, the election postponement is supposed to be for authorities who ‘just need a few more months to put a system in place’. But the Conservatives at WSCC aren’t ready at all, so they’re proposing a far more drastic delay. They want to hold back elections until 2027, suspending the democratic process for 2 years or even longer.”

The good-natured protest march was cheered on by residents and a local busking musician joined in the protestors’ chants of “What do we want? Elections! When do we want them? May!”