English Democrats Oldham Candidate Interview

Candidate Interview: Stephen Morris (English Democrats)

Stephen Morris of the English Democrats, pictured as he handed in his nomination papers at Oldham Council's offices yesterday. (picture: Stuart Coleman Photography)

The English Democrats’ candidate in the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election has said integrity and honesty are the main focus of his campaign.

Stephen Morris also told Saddleworth News he felt he’d be able to offer “more of an independent” outlook if elected as our MP, because he wouldn’t be “tied” to one of the main parties.

The party was formed in 2002, as Mr Morris explained, to “look after England” in light of devolution. He said he was opposed to Scottish and Welsh MPs voting on English matters in the House of Commons: “The way we look at it is having an English Parliament looking after English affairs, and then a separate area looking after UK issues like the environment or defence. And it can work.”

On tackling the deficit, Mr Morris said: “Everybody’s having to make cuts, we’re having to lose school programmes and transport programmes. And yet we then go and give £500m extra per year to Europe, and £7bn to Ireland for their bailout, and we increase overseas aid.”

He continued: “Isn’t our priority to our young people and our children, to actually invest in their future? If there’s anything left over in the pot then we can put it somewhere else. But we have to look after people here. You can’t say you’ve got to make cuts, with massive job losses, and then give money to other parts of the world.”

Mr Morris was critical of both the current and previous governments. He said the coalition was “rushing” into making cuts, but added: “We’re in this state because Labour was spending money they hadn’t got. It’s common household budgeting. You can’t spend more than what you’ve got coming in.”

The by-election was called after former Labour MP Phil Woolas was stripped of his victory in May’s general election for lying about Liberal Democrat Elwyn Watkins in campaign leaflets. Mr Morris said: “He shouldn’t have done it… the electorate’s had 13 years of people saying one thing and doing another.”

Mr Morris is now based in Bury, but previously worked in retail as a store manager on Yorkshire Street in Oldham for eight years. He said he grew to love our area during that time, and explained: “You’ve got not just the town but you’ve got the countryside as well, and you’ve got a good mix of people with that, a good mix of views… but Oldham doesn’t sell itself, I don’t believe the current politicians have been doing enough.”

Mr Morris now works in public transport, and is an official of the Unite union. I interviewed him at a coffee shop in Oldham yesterday, just after he’d handed in his nomination papers at the Civic Centre. We also talked about Metrolink and the railways, the impact of the new Tesco at Greenfield, and the scandal over MPs’ expenses.

You can listen to the interview in full by downloading it from here.

Nominations for the by-election close tomorrow, and that’s also the deadline if you want to register to vote, or apply for a postal vote. Polling day is 13 January.
The candidates we know about so far are, in alphabetical order, Labour’s Debbie Abrahams, Kashif Ali for the Conservatives, Peter Allen of the Greens, Nick “The Flying Brick” Delves from the Monster Raving Loony Party, the Pirate Party UK’s Loz Kaye, UKIP’s Paul Nuttall, and Liberal Democrat Elwyn Watkins. The BNP are also likely to stand, although it’s not clear who their candidate will be. Saddleworth News intends to interview each of them during the campaign.
For full coverage of the by-election so far from Saddleworth News, click here.
The picture of Stephen Morris was taken by Diggle-based photographer Stuart Coleman of Stuart Coleman Photography. You can see more of Stuart’s work at his website here.