Christmas spirit is in the air! It was great to be back at Holy Cross Christmas Tree Festival in Uckfield this year and what a festive feast for the eyes – plus a few ornaments of Parliament on mine-I couldn’t not!. A lovely tradition really bringing the community organisations together and I hope you’d a chance at the weekend to look round too. I hope residents of Uckfield and beyond enjoyed it as much as I did and it is a key part of the town’s last night shopping event.
We’d Small Business Saturday on the 7th, a fantastic opportunity to support our hard-working businesses and traders, showing how much we appreciate them and to shop local. I enjoyed the late night shopping in Forest Row’s Seasons as well as Second Life CIC, the brilliant Café at Babylon Eco Centre Duddleswell, with Cllr Roy Galley, plus Tree Frog and Something Else in East Grinstead helpfully getting my gifts sorted with Cllr Ed Godwin. These businesses are the lifeblood of the local economy and support employment. I’ll do all I can to protect you all. The new Labour Government puts them under threat with their Jobs Tax-a betrayal damaging our economy. For Christmas, shop local where possible and back our local traders and high streets, and see all they’ve to offer.
My party used an opposition day debate to force an MP vote on Labour’s cruel and damaging Family Farm Tax. Labour’s political choice to target farmers will affect workers across East Grinstead, Uckfield, the villages, and the whole country. Despite thousands of farmers descending on Westminster, the biggest demo I've joined and seen in 10 years, and hundreds of thousands signing the petition against Family Farm Tax, Labour is intent on this vindictive tax. MPs had the chance to reject these plans, protect hundreds of thousands of working family farms. The Government simply chose not to. We need food security and must protect farming. This country will rightly never forgive, if they destroy the farming industry as this tax will ultimately do its feared by the sector. I will continue to fight against this.
