Former council leader’s resignation letter blasts Conservative Party policies and Westminster bosses

Coun. Stephen Atkinson listed topics including free speech, law and order, the economy, taxes, energy for industry, food, farming and voter apathy among his concerns,

He has joined Reform UK after resigning from the Conservatives and ending his role as leader of Ribble Valley Council. He sent a letter to other councillors in the Conservative group, announcing his resignation on Sunday. Then on Monday, March 17, he joined a Reform UK press conference in London alongside other newly-recruited councillors and party leader Nigel Farage.

Ribble Valley Council’s Conservative group remains the largest group and will have to choose a new leader.

In his resignation letter, Coun Atkinson wrote: ” It is with great sadness that I wish to inform you that I will be resigning from the Conservative Party with immediate effect. Over the last decade we have governed as Conservatives, creating the most prosperous council in Lancashire. The borough is one of the top-ten healthiest places in the country, with the lowest level of recorded crime in England and Wales. We have done this with no debt, cash in the bank, and our share of council tax is one of the lowest in the country – and half that of some of our neighbours.

‘SOCIAL DEMOCRATS’

He wrote: “We have governed as Conservatives but unfortunately the parliamentary party has governed as social-democrats. I have tried to change this from within the party by raising this issue in Conservative Association meetings, with our former MPs, Nigel Evans and Andrew Stephenson; and directly with the chairman of the party in Downing Street in 2023.

“My concerns were not listened to. I thought that after the general election loss. the Conservative Party would set-out definitive policies to restore the party’s reputation. Sadly, this was not the case.

“I have come to judge MPs not on what they say but what they do. That is why I was so disappointed when Kemi Badenoch was elected leader. Her commitment not to bring forward policies for two years leads me to the opinion that either she cannot get policies through the parliamentary party or that policies will be chosen in the pursuit of power, which they should never be.

“To help you understand my frustration, I have set out some of the policy failures brought forward by the parliamentary party that I regard as not being Conservative. This has not been an easy choice. But for the future of my children and the country, I have opted to stand in the county council elections for the Ribble Valley South West ward for Reform UK.”

FREE SPEECH LAW AND ORDER

Coun Atkinson accused the national Conservative Party of governance failures in the following areas: Regarding free speech, law and order, he listed:

• Non-crime hate incidents being recorded by the police from 2014
• Laws around buffer zones near abortion clinics. He cited the case of Adam Smith-Connor, an army veteran found guilty of breaching the law by ‘praying in silence for his dead son’
• Allowing laws to remain regarding offensive social media posts
• Sentencing for violent offenders including former MP Mike Amesbury, who recently received a suspended sentence after assaulting a man in Cheshire

Coun Atkinson wrote: “Free speech is vital to enable issues to be resolved through debate and understanding.”

THE ECONOMY

He claimed the UK economy is not working, stating: “Too much regulation is resulting in too many hurdles for small companies, There have been increases in dividend and corporation taxes, freezing of personal tax allowances for four years. and the’creation of the highest-ever tax burden.”

He added: “The size of the UK economy is now smaller than California and will be overtaken by Texas in the next few years. GDP per capita has not increased since 2007. In the United States, it has overtaken the UK and grown by 66 per cent in that period. Poland will overtake the UK’s per capita income in five years.

“Quantitative easing, printing money, has doubled since 2010 resulting in asset inflation. This is why our children can no longer buy a house. National debt has increased from 70 per cent of the economy to 100 per cent in 2024. We are now paying £118 billion per year in interest costs.”

FARMING AND INDUSTRY

Coun Atkinson claimed the Conservative Party had inflicted self-harm through industrial, energy and climate policy. He wrote: “Brought by Theresa May by a statutory instrument without a vote, the consequences of this policy brought in by a Conservative government are now starting to be felt.

“Farmers are being incentivised not to grow cattle feed. Meat and dairy is not good for net zero targets. Farmers are producing ever-less food, reducing food security. Simple supply-and-demand economics are why so many people are in food poverty with food being 40 per cent higher than before the pandemic.”

He said UK industrial energy costs are five times that of the United States and seven times that of China. He also highlighted the loss of British steel making, the oil refinery at Grangemouth and the Vauxhall car plant in Luton ‘despite our C02 emissions only being one per cent of global emissions’. Without prosperity we cannot invest in climate resilience, he added.

Voter apathy is another concern. The last election saw the lowest turnout since 1928, he wrote. Change is needed to engage the public in politics.