Southend Democrats

**Southend Democrats** (often regarded just as **Democrats**) is a major national conservative political party in Southend that was established in 1920. Together with right-wing Conservative Party, Southend Democrats form electoral alliance Southend Unity - that received 62 seats on 2020 parliamentary elections. Currently party has around 15 700 registered members.

Beginning from 2017 party is led by Helga Hjort.

## Former names

Throughout its existence Southend Democrats had several different names, among those:

1. From 1920 until 1933 - Southend National Liberal Party
2. From 1933 until 1953 - Southend Union of Democrats
3. From 1953 until 1957 - Southend Democratic Party
4. From 1957 until 1994 - Democratic Party of Southend (or simply Democratic Party)
5. From 1994 - Southend Democrats

## Ideology

In historical retrospect, it is possibly to identify three major periods of ideological development of Southend Democrats.

From its establishment in 1920 until mid-1930s party mostly represented national liberal views, focusing on promoting economic liberalization, opposition to unionism and expansions of individual rights.

From mid-1930s until mid-1970s party was a major political hub of center-right and right-wing politicians and represented conservatism in a broad sense.

Beginning from mid-1970s party started to lose its moderate conservative membership, and started to shift its ideology towards nationalistic approach to conservatism, emphasising preservation of national values of Southend, opposition to mass migration, and cultural conservatism.

## Policies

**Economy**

* Lowering income tax rate, lowering Value added tax value.
* Opposition to Union Council.
* Higher subsidies for farmers.
* Encouragement for private-public partnerships.
* Less strict competitiveness laws.
* Broad privatization of non-essential services.

**Social**

* Opposition to mass immigration, stricter immigration rules.
* More effective programs of integration of immigrants.
* Higher child benefits.
* Higher percentage of mortgage loans covered by state for young families with at least two children.
* Opposition to Islamization of public discourse.
* Ban on Islamic gender apartheid.
* Acceptance of same-sex marriage.
* Socialized approach to healthcare system, replacement of mandatory private healthcare insurance with a state healthcare insurance.
* Ban for criminally convicted immigrants from going through naturalization process for citizenship.
* Higher budget of Ministry of Culture, and bigger amount of projects that promote 'Southend identity' and promote cultural assimilation of immigrants.
* Ban on kosher and halal slaughtered meat.

**Governance**

* Ban on Sharia Courts, ensuring of 'safe zones' for Muslim women that are under their community pressure.
* Support for introduction of binding referendums.
* Opposition to introduction of co-official languages in regions.
* Opposition to federalism.
* Reallow corporate donations to political parties.
* Requirement to pass a history and national values test, in addition to current language test, when acquiring citizenship.
* Higher competence of secrete services to tackle religious extremism.