The eagled eyed amongst you might have spotted the famous cliffs of Walton-on-the- Naze on the BBC and ITV on your television sets last Thursday evening. That’s because I chose Walton’s beaches as the location to film Reform’s latest Party Political Broadcast.

I love those beaches. I often walk my dogs Pebble and Baxter there and this stretch of coastline with its rich history is one of my favourite places in the local area.

And I chose this constituency to deliver a very important national message about the state of this country and the future it has to come. A message that now has had many millions of views on social media.

We often talk about the economic and law and order problems that are facing us but there’s a bigger, more fundamental problem. We’ve actually stopped loving the country we’re part of. We’ve got a very rich history, and we’re not cherishing it.

We’ve lost that basic sense of patriotic pride, and that’s about putting our own people first. It doesn’t mean we don’t like anybody else. It means we believe in the nation, its history and its heritage and we’re determined to pass it on. That I think has been lost in a very, very big way. In particular I sense with the younger generation that they want that identity and that sense of belonging. They want something to be proud of.

When I came back into politics in 2024 and stood for election in Clacton I said it was all about family, community and country. Maybe we should talk a bit more about our country, because it really does matter.

Walking along the beaches in Walton I was reminded that however bad things look that they will turn around. It always has in the past. The good days will return.