Condemning President Trump's actions

Brentwood Liberal Democrats join with their colleagues across the world in condemning the actions of the President of the United States in encouraging his supporters to commit insurrection and attack the Capitol Hill Building that has resulted in the death of at least five people and injuries to many more. We take this as a total dereliction of his Oath of Office and condemn him for it.

Democracy is a rule of government that needs to demonstrate in full public disclosure that it works. To do this, elected members need to be able to meet to discuss and to pass resolutions and law without fear of interruption and indeed, in this case, violent invasion of their debating chamber.

The scenes that we all witnessed only give strength to the opponents of democracy, who might be keen to encourage their followers to further act against it. We have now learned that the FBI is investigating similar potential threats at 50 state capitals on Inauguration Day.

This is obviously a cohesive and well organised attempt to undermine the work of the Government and put many innocent lives at risk.

Major organisations that govern social media outlets have taken the extraordinary step of removing the President and White House staff from using his media platform for any further possible incitement. It is obvious that more stringent measures need to be made to prevent this sort of tragedy from happening again.

Let us hope our Government takes note and reinforces the security of our nation's democratic seat of Government and likewise, our Councils, as democracy has many levels and all of us that work within need to be assured that our safety and that of our staff is, to the best of our ability, made secure.