Letter to general election candidates ahead of July 4th

I have sent the below letter to all the candidates who have thus far declared they will stand in the upcoming general election for my constituency. As and when more declare (the deadline is June 7th), I will send the same letter to them.

I encourage everyone to write similarly to their own candidates (you can find who they are here), whether or not you intend to vote, as holding these would-be "representatives" to account and gaining explicit, written confirmation of what they will and won't do, may be key moving forward.

The candidates standing in my constituency to date are Andrew Cooper (Green), Harpreet Uppal (Labour) and Susan Laird (Reform). As of this morning, only Susan Laird has replied. I will update on this situation again after the candidate deadline has passed and share all candidate replies (or lack of them) with you.

Dear [candidate name],

I am writing to you as a member of the Huddersfield constituency in which you are standing as a candidate in the upcoming general election (GE).

I take my civic responsibility to engage in the electoral process very seriously, and have stood as a candidate in local elections for the last four consecutive years (twice as a 'Freedom Alliance' candidate and twice as an independent candidate).

I do not feel that my resources will stretch to standing as a candidate in the GE, and therefore I am searching for the most appropriate candidate to whom I can entrust my vote.

As such, I would like to ask you a number of questions regarding your stance on key issues, and the issues that matter to me most.

I became politically active as a candidate in 2021 exclusively to oppose the draconian and undemocratic behaviour of the government as pertained to the "Coronavirus pandemic".

I was and am entirely opposed to governments unilaterally imposing restrictions and mandates on its population in response to an alleged pandemic, or for any other reason.

The government should not have the right or the power to force people into quarantine-like situations, to restrict their movements, to close their businesses, or to shut down their children's schools. Ministers most certainly should not have the right to test, mask, or vaccinate people by force (coercion and threatened penalties for the non-compliant constituting force, and flouting all well-established protocols of medical ethics and human rights). These are all tyrannical, totalitarian behaviours that are (or should be) totally antithetical to a democratic country.

It is immaterial whether the government believes these behaviours will augment the national health (a belief I would vigorously challenge), as the government is not tasked with protecting our health, but with protecting our rights. This is in fact the government's only legitimate job.

As elected representatives, ministers may offer guidance as to what they believe are healthy behaviours, but it is imperative that our right to freely choose whether we follow this guidance remains sacrosanct. To give the government the power to force people to do things they do not wish to do in the name of "health" sets a very sinister precedent indeed.

So, my questions to you are:

Would you support, or actively oppose, the UK returning to a lockdown situation for any reason, including an alleged pandemic, or for reasons said to be linked to "climate change"?

Would you support, or actively oppose, the imposition of mandates where it comes to health-related behaviours, such as masks, tests, and vaccines?

Would you, in short, support the right of the individual to make autonomous and non-coerced choices about their bodies and how they live, or would you betray democratic and ethical principles by colluding to take away people's freedoms and govern their behaviour by force?

Thank you in advance for your response.

Yours sincerely,

Miri Finch

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