Keep the BNP out of Ipswich – It was a sad day for the town this week when the BNP announced that they would stand in Bridge and Chantry. I have always been proud of the fact that Ipswich has been a town of many cultures and one that was not blighted by the race riots of the 80;s or the rise of the National Front in the 1970’s.
One of my old school friends has contacted me since I have been in Afghanistan and we both remember the great times we had at Toweramparts, but the best thing about the school was how everyone got on – white, West Indian, Sikh, Indian, Ukrainian- it was a school of many different cultures but the fact that we all stuck together- what ever the provocation was part of my education and upbringing that I am proud of.
Now we have fascists standing in this town that is not what is Ipswich is about – recently we have had Mayor’s born in the West Indies, but if you go to the Racecourse estate and just off Felixstowe Road is a street named after the first Asian Mayor in Ipswich – and that was in the 1920’s.
It seems funny and slightly perverse that I am sitting in Afghanistan, trying to bring democracy and freedom to all in a troubled country, when back in Ipswich we have two people standing who would like to take away the right to live in a democracy from thousands who now see Britain as there home.
Please make sure in June we show them at the ballot box that they are not wanted in this town and that they go back under the stone they crawled out from.
