The covert campaign has begun

Comrades,

In the next few days I will publish my submission to the Electoral Commission, but in the meantime I want to urge you all to get in contact with them yourselves.

They are accepting new submissions on their website until the 23rd November on their interim recommendations. You can write one on their website here, or email one to them at this address - ec@gov.je

They accept all sorts of recommendations, long or short, on all the issues or on just one issue, anything. So don't feel like you shouldn't submit something just because you don't have a huge amount to say or nothing new to contribute.

Even just a short message to say you agree with comments made by another submitter are good and show the commission what people think.

As has been clear by the unexpected contents of their interim report, a positive public lobby can be effective and can make a difference.

I'll be making the points the commission is actually deliberately providing for an opportunity for Jerseys system to become less democratic and is deliberately offering an option for reform that is in direct conflict with their own principles and that they should have the courage of their conviction to fully endorse their proposition of a single class of member in 6 super constituencies.

I'd urge everyone to write a submission to them making these points too. As always, I'm happy to help anyone wanting to do so, just drop me a line at either smezec@hotmail.com or reformjersey@gmail.com.

Further to that, I'd also urge everyone to come to the public meetings scheduled for the next few weeks to air their views directly to the commission and make sure that the meetings aren't dominated by the usual suspects or those with vested interests.

Here is the schedule for the meetings -

Date	Location	Time
Tuesday 6th November	St Brelade’s Parish Hall	7 pm
	St John’s Parish Hall	7 pm
Wednesday 7th November	St Helier Town Hall	7 pm
	Trinity Parish Hall	7 pm
Thursday 8th November	St Martin’s Public Hall	7 pm
	St Clement’s Parish Hall	7 pm
Tuesday 13th November	St Ouen’s Parish Hall	7 pm
	St Peter’s Parish Hall	7 pm
Wednesday 14th November	Grouville Parish Hall	7 pm
	St Mary’s Parish Hall	7 pm
Thursday 15th November	St Saviour’s Parish Hall	7 pm
	St Lawrence Parish Hall	7 pm

I'm going to be at the meetings in St Brelade, St Helier and either St Clement or St Martin. So feel free to approach me for a chat there.

Those that care about democracy in Jersey need to realise that the debate is starting now, and the argument is by no means won. All you have to do is check out the letters to the editor in the JEP to see that those against a modern democracy in Jersey are preparing to fight. We've already had really strange letters from Knights and Ladies and those with initials rather than first names. Some decrying the "burden of government " (that's that horrible oppressor that provides us with an education system, police, nurses and those other terrible burdens), Don Filleul saying he supports the commissions recommendations (but with the Constables, which is actually against their recommendations), and the Knight and Lady who don't seem to realise that if their Constable is so wonderful they will certainly not be denied the opportunity to vote for them as a Deputy into the States too.

I don't particularly want to write to the JEP any more, but I'd urge anyone else who wants to put forward our point of view to write to them and make these points.

We also have Senator Farnham, who campaigned against the reduction in the number of Senators, who is now asking for a referendum on the Senators. If we are going to have referenda on the minutia of details on reform (which I am totally against for the reasons I outlined in my previous post), personally I would rather it were on the Senators than the Constables (whom should not even be considered to have a place in the new format of the States), but he let himself down by making a rather ridiculous point that the commission can't possibly consider removing the Senators without consulting the public. This, despite the fact that there has been consultation going on for months now, which he actually took part in! You couldn't make it up.

But most disappointingly we have even had some people, who could otherwise have been allies, determined to cynically stand as a lone voice in opposition to virtually everything that happens and lie about Reform Jersey. We've even been accused of being a phoney group led by current States Members seeking to conspire to implement a package of reform that's sole purpose is to provide for greater pensions for themselves! I can only imagine what provokes someone to concoct a pack of lies so fanciful as that. I'm 21 years old for goodness sake, what exactly do I stand to gain from being a puppet like that?

Finally, I just want to point out the new tab at the top of this page linking to an archive I'm trying to compile of various media clips relevant to Reform Jerseys campaign and other things I'm politically involved in.


Cheers everyone, thanks for reading and thanks to everyone that continues to make valued contributions!

Sam