Heritage Party Tasos Papanastasiou: 'Why I should be next Clacton MP'

He explained why he is standing for the party.

He said: “I decided to join the Heritage Party about a month ago. I was previously with Nigel Farage at Reform UK.

“I do like Nigel’s policies, but I changed over to Heritage because of inconsistency in a couple of policies.

Heritage - Tasos and the Heritage Party are passionate about instilling British culture into education (Image: Tasos Papanastasiou)

“One being, there was an interview with Richard Tice and David Ball, where they were openly talking about the rolling out of further vaccines.

“This wasn’t consistent with what I believe in. We really don’t believe in the vaccines. With Covid or any flu, it takes years to produce a vaccine.”

Mr Papanastasiou says he believes in the de-escalation of wars.

He said: “We don’t want any more wars, we want peace.

"We also want peace in the Middle East, we want to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Stop the horrendous things that are going on over there.”

Mr Papanastasiou lives in Kirby Cross and has lived in the area for several years.

He has a background in politics, previously being a member of Reform UK and also a former Conservative.

He said: “I was delighted when David Kurten asked me to stand for Clacton.

“I’m not a career politician and I’m not here for the money. I truly believe that I’ve got to have my say - we all have a right to freedom of speech.

“I like people from all walks of life, all faiths, all religions. I find people fascinating and you can learn so much from people.”

Asked why he is with the Heritage Party, he said: “We believe strongly in freedom, democracy and the rule of law.

“We believe in not meddling in other countries' affairs, securing our borders and putting Britain first.

“We believe in independence of nation states, less bureaucratic control over our countries, freedom and nationalism.

“We need to fully implement Brexit, and not go back to the old days. We need more control over our free trade agreements.

Speaking about immigration, he said: “We can only support 50 million people and there are 70 million in this country. We can’t cope.

“We believe at the heart of the world’s problems today is an ideology, what we believe is called cultural Marxism by governments, to change our lives for the worst.

“We have witnessed the gradual decay in our cities with empty shops now and dirty streets. We are slowly becoming a third world country.

“We want to put ourselves in complete control of everything, all the assets.”

Mr Papanastasiou claims traditional institutions are under attack.

He said: “The Labour and Green Party aim to systematically attack and destroy the institution of family, the church and the state.

“It encourages promoting religious extremism, hate and animosity between faiths.

“It’s an intrusive society, where people don’t have any freedom, it’s communism.

The Heritage Party believes in a traditional nuclear family, and that family life should be between one man and one woman.

Mr Papanastasiou said: “We believe there are only two genders, male and female, and obviously there is a Christian element to that because we believe in God.

“We don’t believe that families are best brought up outside of a natural marriage.

"We certainly don’t believe in sexualising our children from an early age.

“It’s immoral and should be illegal, children must be protected from danger.

Mr Papanastasiou believes we need educational reform.

“We need to make Britain great again, we need to go back to basics," he said.

“We need the right teachers and this woke culture is not the right way to go forward.

“Schools must teach children about our heritage and our history, not about how it’s good to be in a same sex marriage.

“We’re not against people doing their own thing because it’s part of freedom, but what we don’t believe in is the sexualisation of our children.

Mr Papanastasiou added: “We also do not believe in turning off a life support machine because of the idea that there is nothing that can be done.

“We believe in pro-life and we believe that life is precious.”

Asked about the apparent climate crisis, Mr Papanastasiou said: “We don’t believe in net zero.

"We think it is a fake global warming agenda. Carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, it doesn’t harm the environment.

“We’re saying no to wind farms. We find them ugly and we are saying no to the radiation-leaked 5G masts.”

The Heritage Party wants to introduce a law that a married couple can earn over £25,000 a year before paying any tax.

Mr Papanastasiou said: “We want more money in the hands of married couples with children, we want to abolish the TV licence and inheritance tax.

“Property prices are outstripping wages, and we want to do something about that.

“We would look at sorting some form of tax relief for first-time buyers and encourage people to buy their first home.

Asked about Clacton, Mr Papanastasiou said: “The number of unemployed people is much higher than it should be.

"It is a deprived area but at the same time there are a lot of retired people.

“There is a social problem which we need to address, to get young people into work rather than claiming benefits.

"We need to give young people the opportunities, encourage more enterprise schemes.

“It’s not good being stuck at home all day, eating rubbish, which is then going to affect the NHS.”