Housing crisis
I would tackle the housing crisis by:
- Scrapping stamp duty that inhibits old people from moving into smaller homes, to free up the 25 million unused bedrooms across the UK;
- Penalising absent homeowners;
- Penalising developers failing to meet their deadlines;
- Ending arms sales to abusive regimes exacerbating the refugee crisis.
Knife crime
To tackle knife-crime, I would reverse police cuts and austerity measures.
- On the police front, I would push for more and dedicated police to tackle violent crime. I would also push to ensure that the make-up of police forces match demographically those that they police.
- On the social front, I would push to legalise and tax cannabis, and use the proceeds to:
- Increase the Job Seeker’s Allowance and housing benefits to match average local rents; and
- Increase funding for youth spaces and activities.
Revocation of citizenship
When Home Secretary Sajid Javid attempted to deprive British born Shamima Begum of citizenship, he did so on the presumption that he could legally do so because she could assert a claim to Bangadeshi citizenship, based on her ancestry. This is racism. As it turns out, his attempt will fail, but only because Bangladesh stated it would refuse her citizenship, and because making her stateless is illegal.
This means born Brits whose ancestors immigrated to the UK are beholden to a different set of laws than Anglo-Saxon Brits, ie. we are second-class citizens. This is unacceptable. I want to change these laws and am on a working group with other Lib Dem activists to change these in partnership with Ed Davey, our Lib Dem spokesperson for Home Affairs.
energy and a just transition 