September has been another busy month for the Restore Britain Lincoln branch, with a mixture of practical community work, continued outreach and some important work taking place behind the scenes.
Birchwood Action Day
This month we held an action day in Birchwood, beginning with a morning of leafleting around the area before spending the afternoon tackling some of the problems that residents have been raising with us.
The woods around Birchwood have become a particular source of frustration for local residents, with rubbish and fly-tipping regularly being reported in areas that can be difficult to get properly dealt with. Rather than simply telling people that something should be done, as always we decided to go and do what we could ourselves.
After finishing our leafleting, we headed into the woods and spent the afternoon clearing rubbish and improving the area. It was another good example of what we mean by See It, Sort It. If there is something within our ability to improve, we believe we should be willing to and do take responsibility for sorting it.
Working with Lincolnshire Police
We have also been involved in a sensitive matter concerning the safeguarding of children. Members of the branch were able to investigate and provide identifying supportive information to Lincolnshire Police in relation to an alleged child grooming matter.
For obvious reasons, we cannot provide any further details about the circumstances or the investigation, but we are incredibly grateful to Lincolnshire Police for taking the information seriously and acting on it as quickly as they did.
We are also looking further into other reports we have received from local residents about women being approached while alone in the early mornings or late at night by unknown individuals in cars on quieter back roads. Some residents have described the individuals as speaking very broken English, not taking no as an answer and being highly aggressive.
These are reports, rather than established facts, and we do not jump to conclusions about what is happening. We are, however, taking the concerns seriously and intend to investigate what we can and establish what is actually happening in order to report these incidents correctly.
Continuing to get out into Lincoln
Our leafleting work has continued to expand throughout the month, with 213 streets now covered in September alone thanks to the incredible hard work of one of our volunteers.
The amount of ground we are able to cover is increasing, and we are continuing to build on the work we have already done across Lincoln. Leafleting isn’t just about putting something through a letterbox either; whenever we are out, we have the opportunity to speak to people directly and hear what residents actually think about what is happening in their communities.
Prepating for next year’s local elections
A considerable amount of work has also been taking place behind the scenes as we continue preparing for next year’s local elections.
We have been working through sourcing appropriate candidates, and completing the necessary applications and paperwork to get Restore Britain onto the ballot in Lincoln, making sure that the practical side of standing candidates is being dealt with properly.
It is perhaps less visible than going out into the community, but this is an important part of building the branch and preparing to give people in Lincoln the opportunity to vote for Restore Britain at the local elections next year and have our voices heard.
Students return to Lincoln
With students returning to Lincoln this month, we have also started receiving a significant number of reports from residents about the amount of openly communist material appearing around the university, high street and surrounding areas.
This has been particularly upsetting to some members of Lincoln’s Eastern European communities who have spoken to us directly. Some of the people we have spoken to personally lived under communist regimes themselves. For them, seeing communism openly promoted and celebrated is not an abstract political discussion or something they have only learned about from history books. It is something they have personally experienced.
We believe there is an important distinction between somebody holding an unpopular political belief as we well know and the deliberate intimidation or vandalism of public or private spaces to impose that belief on others. The latter is not something that should simply be dismissed as political expression.
We will therefore be making enquiries with the University of Lincoln and the Students’ Union about what is happening, including the volume of posters appearing, where they are being placed and whether the university’s own rules concerning posters, campaigning and property are being followed.
The University itself states that lawful freedom of speech is protected, including views that others may find offensive or unwelcome. It also explicitly states that this protection does not excuse abuse, bullying, harassment, intimidation or unlawful activity.
We believe those principles should apply consistently, regardless of which political ideology is being promoted. We will be asking the university and Students’ Union what action is being taken where their rules are being broken, and why residents who have personally experienced communist regimes should simply be expected to accept this kind of material being imposed around them.
This is not about pretending that controversial political views should be banned. It is about expecting the same standards of conduct, respect for other people and respect for property to apply to everyone.
We will also be launching a new campaign specifically around this issue of vandalism soon, so look out for that announcement.
A change for the Lincoln branch
Finally, September has seen a change in our local organisation, with Dawn taking over as local organiser from Deklan.
We want to take this opportunity to thank Deklan for everything he has done in helping establish and build the Lincoln branch. A lot of the work that has gone into getting the branch to where it is today has happened because people have been willing to step up and take responsibility, and we are grateful for the time and effort he has put in.
At the same time, we are very grateful to Dawn for taking on the role and look forward to continuing to build the branch under her organisation.
September has therefore been another month of steadily building what we are trying to create here in Lincoln: getting out into the community, dealing with problems where we can, listening to residents, investigating concerns, preparing for the elections and continuing to grow the local organisation.
There is still plenty more to do, and we’ll be getting on with it.
Get Involved.
If any of this sounds like something you want to be part of, get in touch with the branch directly, whether that’s to find out more about us or the party, help out with leafletting, or join us for a litter picking session, we’d love to hear from you. And if you’re not already, follow us on our socials and give our posts a share, it all helps get the message further than the media will.
We will put Lincoln first and Restore Britain.