It's been quite a long time since I was last told off by a teacher (and, in fact, the last time I recall it, it was in a sardonic form of 'congratulations', as apparently I had managed to be late for my final year of school 87 times - a record!), but I got quite the nostalgic reprimand last Friday...

The nature of my misdemeanour, I was sternly told, was not residing in the ward I was attempting to stand as a candidate in, an action of which my scholarly scolder did not approve.

Said annoyed admonisher was a complete stranger whose doorstep I was standing on, whilst smiling winningly (er, hopefully), brandishing a damp piece of paper, and asking if she would support me in my political ambitions...

If this sounds like a rather strange and improbable situation (and it is), please allow me to explain...

Ever since the corona circus first came to town in 2020, my primary focus has been: what can we do to expose and stop this (and all future manifestations of tyranny) and reclaim our freedom and autonomy?

It's always been my contention that freedom is multifaceted, and there is no "one big thing" we can do to demolish the tyrannical control grid that's been in place for at least several hundred years. Rather, there are lots of small strategic spanners we can throw in the works to gradually disable the machine's malevolent machinations...

These might include: protests; legal challenges; letter-writing; leafletting; boycotts (all of which I have enthusiastically engaged in) and... yes, I'm afraid I'm going to say it... politics.

"Oh right, yeah, politics," cue groans and eye rolls. "I suppose you think you can vote your way out of tyranny."

Nope.

But I also don't think I can singularly protest, legally challenge, letter-write, leaflet, or boycott my way out of it.

I'm still going to do all of those things, though, since as I said - we have to fight back in all the ways we can, and there is no "one big thing" that is going to do it and bring the whole monstrous monolith crashing to the ground. Indeed, it is very unlikely that, whatever we do, we will see ultimate victory in our own lifetimes (although we can expect to win many smaller battles) - but does that mean we don't fight?

Politics is simply one potential weapon we can harness in our resistance strategy, and I see no rational reason to single that particular platform out and say, "we can't engage in politics because that legitimises the system".

Mm... not like having a bank account, possessing a mortgage, renting a house, using the internet, having social media...

We all "legitimise" - if legitimise means participate in - the system every day, so there's no rational reason to opt out from politics on that basis, unless you're going to give up all the other things I mentioned too, which you're not, so let's have a look at the other objections...

"Well, it's all rigged anyway..."

It is at the higher levels, insofar as, anyone permitted to rise so far in the ranks that they are a Presidential or Prime Ministerial candidate is inevitably a controlled asset and we could never get a genuine pro-freedom candidate that far (and if by some miracle we ever did, they would just be killed - and I mean actually killed, not fake assassinated with a tomato ketchup packet).

But that isn't the level of politics I'm talking about. The level of politics I'm talking about, and that saw me standing in the rain on a random doorstep in Holme Valley South, enduring my first teacherly telling off in quite some time, is rather different...

Most people (including the pre-2020 incarnation of myself) are not aware that their local council is largely comprised of people who are elected into their positions by members of the general public. Council seats are not employment position that you apply for like any other job, rather, you are elected into them by voters.

Most people are not aware of this, because these elections get basically zero press attention (since, as I've emphasised many times, the press only ever tells you what it wants you to know about) - and if few people are aware of the existence of these elections, even fewer are aware that they themselves could stand as a candidate in one.

You don't need any special qualifications, it doesn't cost anything, and - as I and my educational interlocutor can personally attest - you don't even have to live in the ward in question (you just have to live, work, or own property in the overall borough).

Wards are very small (there are nearly 9,000 of them nationwide, compared to just 650 parliamentary constituencies), each one can have up to three councillors, and if you are elected as a councillor to represent one, it only requires a few hours' commitment a week, so can be fitted around a full-time job.

There are council-wide elections in every borough, sometimes as often as every three out of four years, when councillors for every ward are elected (and if you don't know who your ward councillors are, as vast numbers of people do not, you can find out here). I have stood in said elections four times, most recently in May, which I wrote about here.

But if a sitting councillor steps down from their seat, there is a snap by-election, where just a single seat is up for grabs, and I learned last Thursday that that is to happen imminently in the nearby ward of Holme Valley South (better known as home of Last of the Summer Wine, Holmfirth - I wonder if I could have fitted the word 'ho(l)me' into this sentence any more times?).

The problem with hearing about it on Thursday, however, was that the deadline for candidate applications was Friday, and submitting your application isn't entirely straightforward...

Before we get onto that, however, it's pertinent to ask this question: for a local resident such as myself who is actively engaged in local politics and plugged into local political networks.. why was I only hearing about this election barely 24 hours before the candidate deadline?

This is for the same reasons that council elections are not promoted generally. "They" don't want us to know about them, much less actively take part in them, which is why they not only keep them obscured from public view, but make the process for standing in them so convoluted.

True, submitting your candidacy doesn't cost anything, but once you've managed to actually find the nomination papers online (which in itself requires negotiating a rather labyrinthian maze of information), you must acquire two nominating signatures from people living in the ward.

(And be thankful for small mercies - it used to be ten! But they reduced it to two in "the pandemic" and have as yet neglected to change it back.)

Easy enough if you're a lifelong resident of the ward and on friendly terms with your neighbours, but that's not everyone's situation (far from it these days), especially if they want to stand in a ward they don't live in - which, despite the tutorial ticking off I got for so doing, is very common.

In that situation, where you're not directly connected to anyone living in the ward, you have no choice but to literally knock on the doors of random residents and ask them if they wouldn't mind terribly supporting the political ambitions of a complete stranger...

Would you fancy making such enquiries?

No. Virtually nobody does...

Which is precisely why they make you do it - to put people off, because they really, really don't want ordinary people involved in local politics, as they know that's where we could really make a difference.

Consequently, they lob this deeply uncomfortable obstacle in the way (and you need even more signatures if you want to stand for other positions, like MP or mayor), knowing full well that this is something the vast majority of people simply won't be prepared to do, therefore effectively disqualifying themselves from standing, without having to be formally excluded by an external authority (tyranny is always much more effective when you can get people to apply it to themselves rather than enacting it by force).

And, to be honest, there is absolutely no conceivable way I would have done it four years ago either.

However, since that time, I have accompanied my friend and West Yorkshire Mayoral candidate Jonathan Tilt on many door-knocking exercises, including for his Mayor campaign, when he had to get A HUNDRED!

Well, I thought, if he can do a hundred, I'm sure I can manage two.

And manage I did, because - despite deeply not wanting to do it and despite the telling off I received - I actually got the signatures really quickly. Of the three people who answered their doors, two agreed to do it, because - and this is the big plot twist which scuppers the obnoxious overlords' evil intentions - people are generally quite pleased to be asked (or possibly just massively relieved you're not selling double-glazing).

As I explained to my nominees in my little spiel (muttered under my breath several times in practice in the anxiety-inducing car ride over to Holmfirth), "by signing, you're not saying you agree with me or that you're going to vote for me, you're just saying you think I should have the right to stand".

So at 13:45 Friday afternoon (T-minus 2 hours 15 minutes to deadline!), I had completed my forms and rushed them over to the council offices, where they were checked and accepted. And - credit where it's due - as many obstacles as they might chuck in your way to completing the things, once they're actually done, the council are very helpful at going through them and checking you haven't made any mistakes etc.

Hence forth, I am now on the ballot for Holme Valley South on Thursday 17th October, up against five other candidates - Labour, Conservative, Lib Dems, Reform and Green. I am the only independent.

(There's a somewhat amusing anecdote about the Green candidate, Toby Cooper, son of Andrew, Cooper Sr. being someone who, as eagle-eyed readers may recall, I have crossed swords - or at least, cross words - with before, when he was running as our local MP candidate and I wrote him a letter, to which I received a rather rude reply.

I follow Mr. Cooper on Twitter, and had no idea about this by-election until last Thursday, when I found out because he posted a Tweet declaring that his son was standing in it.

"Oh!", I thought and immediately checked the deadline for applications, which was the next day. "I've got 24 hours, I can just do it - thanks Andrew!")

I think that offering political resistance, and a real alternative, in these elections is a vitally important thing to do, and my resolve in this regard is redoubled every time I see how needlessly difficult they make it - not advertising the elections anywhere, hiding the nominations forms, having the nonsense "two nominations from strangers" requirement (how this qualifies you for political candidacy, I have no idea - as I intimated earlier, knocking on strangers' doors and persuading them to sign things more qualifies you for a career in retailing double-glazing, although, to be fair, I have had a stint at doing that too, so maybe that helped).

Compare this to how easy they make it for us to do things they actually do want us to do, like getting a vaccine (advertised everywhere, easy to make an appointment, no strangers' signatures required).

That is because local councils are the crucial instruments central governments rely upon to enforce tyranny. Without the capitulation of councils, governments would get nowhere. After all, it wasn't Boris Johnson or Matt Hancock coming to your local town and barking at you to wear a mask, close your business, keep six feet apart - this was all enforced by the councils... which is why the establishment is so invested in keeping people like us out of them.

Imagine if every council had multiple pro-freedom councillors installed within them, who refused to push tyranny? Imagine what a difference that would make to every local landscape?

It's eminently possible, since as I said, you don't need any qualifications to stand as a councillor and you don't need any money: you just need to fill in a form (if you can find it). This kind of direct activism is so downplayed and obscured from public view by the authorities because they know just how powerful it could be if the "wrong" people (e.g., us) got involved.

Of course, inevitably when I explain this to people, I get:

"You're wasting your time though because the vote count is rigged."

This objection is repeated on loop like the NLP mantra I suspect it is, but nobody who says it has a single shred of evidence to support the assertion, and as someone who has actually attended multiple electoral counts, I can vouch for the fact that it is not.

I suspect there may be some small pockets of fraud with postal votes (votes getting "lost", but then this is a vulnerability with the postal system generally), which is why I always strongly encourage people to go to the booth, unless they literally, physically can't - because once your vote is cast and put in that box, it is not shredded or rubbed out. It does count and it is counted.

The sole and simple reason the uni-party gets elected so much more often than independents is therefore not because of any "rigging", but because of this one ineffable fact: uni-party supporters are far more likely to vote.

The natural supporters of independent candidates, however - generalised rebels, dissidents, and conspiracists of all stripes - believe "it's all rigged anyway" and so they don't.

Yet it was proven beyond any doubt by the Muslim community at the General Election that independents can do exceptionally well, provided people actually get active and vote for them. The Muslims put forward several independent candidates, organised their communities to all get behind them, and got five of them elected, even ousting the one MP who explicitly called for forced vaccinations.

If they can do that at the MP level, there's absolutely no reason we can't do it at the local council level, where far less votes are required to secure a seat - and where there's typically far less competition.

The bottom line is, if we all completely abstain from politics because "it legitimises the system" or whatever other objection, that simply means we are removing all obstacles to total establishment domination of the political sphere. They want us to abstain, that's why they don't advertise it, and that's also why Andrew Cooper will unequivocally be annoyed when he realises his proud paternal Tweet has resulted in an additional challenge to his son's candidacy...

If it was "all rigged anyway", he wouldn't care, because he would know the result was a foregone conclusion and that it doesn't matter who stands because (whoever) is already appointed to win.

That's not how it works, though.

Cooper will be most displeased about the additional challenge, just as all the candidates always are whenever people outside the uni-party stand, and as I have detailed in previous pieces. We're a real threat to their hegemony and control, and they know it.

Admittedly, it's very unlikely, as a first-time independent candidate in this particular ward, that I will get elected.

But every time I stand, my name becomes more familiar to voters, and I learn more about the process and how to effectively campaign, making it successively more likely each time.

Each election cycle gives me a chance to platform pro-freedom beliefs, to bring more attention to encroaching government tyranny, and crucially, to talk to real people in the real world (and to get told off by them...).

Many people have correctly made the point that - hugely valuable a tool as the internet is - we will never ultimately win this war here, which is why "they" are so heavily invested in keeping us here. Addictive algorithms, dopamine casinos, heavily subsidised streaming services and more, are all insidiously designed to keep you staring at the screen and out of the real world - which is ultimately what we're fighting for and the only territory where we can really win.

"They" control the internet entirely. Even the free-speech platforms are still under the ultimate spell of "them", and information is always subtly manipulated and controlled.

They do not have any of this control in the real world, however, and cannot harness and direct your interactions with other people the way they can online. They know this all too well: that is why they were so hellbent on shutting down any and all social venues during the fake plague, and forcing all interactions to take place online instead - and that's why they want to force you to give up your "reality privilege" and accept an existence that is entirely online.

Therefore, any form of activism that gives us a credible and robust real-world platform, as local politics does, is especially valuable.

Even if it was "rigged" (it isn't), standing as a candidate still gives you the opportunity to directly interact with multiple members of your local community discussing what matters to them and sharing information face-to-face. Yes, you can do that at any time anyway, but this gives you a framework and a platform, and when you introduce yourself as an electoral candidate, it gives you an increased legitimacy in the eyes of many, who might otherwise dismiss you.

Not just that, though, but it gives you a focus and a structure with your local activist friends, beyond just sitting around and chatting, which - fun as that undoubtedly is - often doesn't really achieve anything and can tend to fizzle out. A lot of new people were thrown together in 2020, and initially felt strongly bonded and connected, as they were united in their outrage against the fake pandemic and despotic government response... but unless that initial spurt of energy was channeled into some kind of coherent project and purpose, these connections tended to fade away.

Human beings are at their best when they get together to complete an activity, and this is why we have such things as book clubs, pub quizzes, amateur sports, and so on. It appeals to our hardwired instincts to form groups that achieve things - that is after all how we survived for thousands of years. The primary reason our social instincts are there, and are so strong (as opposed to more solitary species who are happy with life alone) is specifically because of the enhanced power for achievement and survival we have in groups.

You might have noticed that, if you've ever had really good work friends and then one of you gets a new job, often when you subsequently meet up, the intensity and closeness that was once there seems to have dissipated - and that's because the shared activity was so fundamental to your bond, as it very often is. Taking away a central bonding activity or mutual goal from people tends to see the relationship fade.

Consequently, a big part of why so many people are lonely or isolated today is that modern society doesn't emphasise enough the importance of doing meaningful things together, but pushes the idea that just sitting around chatting is enough to sustain a relationship, when it very often isn't. That kind of thing generally has a very limited shelf-life (hence why it's so common to see friends or couples sitting in pubs in silence staring at their phones...). Chatting isn't enough. We're built to do.

So, getting active in local politics also gives you the opportunity to create something durable and activity-based that will bond like-minded people together for the longer-term, creating a robust community as well as giving you the platform for real-world activism.

And, perhaps most importantly of all, it breaks the fixation we have - that we are trained to have - with big-name "heroes" and waiting for them to save us (and arguing endlessly about whether they are "controlled opposition", yada yada). Rather, it puts the focus back on us, emphasising the importance of reclaiming our own power and actively taking steps to use it.

So “standing” (in the place you live or otherwise) really is worth doing, and that is why, in the last five years, I've gone from a non-voter who didn't even know where the local polling station was, to a five-times candidate prepared to risk the wrath of local headteachers to get my name on the ballot...

Of course, I realise that writing all this will probably get me less votes than if I'd simply said "I'll do something about the pot holes", but hopefully it will at least encourage some further thought and dialogue about the value of participating in local politics.

And if I get elected, I solemnly swear - I really will do something about the pot holes.

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