My name is Tom Holdsworth, I am the Reform party Parliamentary candidate for the seat of Broxbourne.

Full statement

I was born in Welwyn Garden City and currently live in Mid Hertfordshire with my wife and son. I have lived here most of my life, but with many short periods living abroad during a forty year career as a research Geophysicist. I have worked on research projects worldwide in numerous countries and also on an expedition to Antarctica. I previously worked as an electrical engineer on cruise ships and as a studio technician in the film and TV industries.

I joined the Reform party in the hope of making a difference. I perceive that our once great country has visibly disintegrated under many incompetent governments over a protracted period. Reform offers an alternative to the stale, uninspiring social democrats of both 'main' parties who have ruined the country.

The list of woes imposed on our benighted country by recent governments is long. Wages have fallen, with wage undercutting by imported foreign labour leading to indigenous workers becoming dependent on benefits. Destructive taxes on the oil and gas industries have increased fuel costs and denuded our energy security. Foreign courts, despite Brexit, still have supremacy over British courts. Police and courts have lost all authority, prisons are overcrowded and crime is out of control, stabbings and shoplifting have been normalised. Meanwhile the cost of living rises, our borders are violated on a daily basis with seemingly no ministerial responsibility for it, or ability to stop it. The country is in a shambles and the other parties only offer more of the same.

We need the radical change of direction which only Reform offers.