ON this Brexit day, it is important to give credit where credit is due to those local activists who did their bit to get the United Kingdom out of the European Union.
This reporter has been working in Thurrock for nearly fourteen years. Back in 2006, he first met Clive Broad.
Grays resident, Clive was the owner of Daybreak Windows in Stanford-le-Hope.
He was a proud Grays man, born in New Road. He also did great charity work through Markdyke Rotary.
I interviewed Clive as he (and brother Alan) were standing as UKIP candidates in the local elections.
Thirteen years ago, Clive’s arguments were not about immigration etc but grounded in genuine economic grievances.
He was a sole trader who, as they say, never made a nickel from another man’s sweat but he was incandescent at the waste in Europe as well as the maze of paperwork that, he felt, made the job of an ordinary hard working Grays businessman all the more harder.
It was a few years later that people such as Tim Aker, Kerry Smith etc came on the scene.
Clive stood on number of occasions for local council and for MP. You may well remember his van driving round Thurrock.
If Nigel Farage came to town, it was usually down to Clive’s office, where the printing machine would whirr away.
As the years went by he faded from view politically, but June 2016 had a lot to do with men such as Clive saying there is something rotten in the state of Brussels.
So, if you are one of the 72% in Thurrock who voted Leave, then raise a glass to Clive Herbert Broad at 11pm tonight.
Below is an interview from 2010.
I agree, it is people like Clive and Nigel who have been tenacious and not let the whole thing fade away.
The only downside is we all now realise we DO NOT live in the democracy we thought we did. Parliament put pay to that, well and truly.
Thank you Clive and Nigel, Britain needs you more than ever.