Green Party Councillor for Thanet District Council, prospective parliamentary candidate for Thanet South, campaigner against fracking, including plans for exploratory drilling in the former East Kent colliery area.

Edited transcript of his presentation

I am totally opposed to fracking, no ifs, no buts, no maybes. It shouldn’t be allowed to happen in this country because of the enormous potential damage that fracking can cause to people’s lives, property and to the environment and the damage that it is going to do global warming and climate change, which we should all be concerned about.

I am proud to be part of a political organisation, with people such as Caroline Lucas, who unlike most other politicians in this country will actually walk the talk when we object to something and involve themselves directly in peaceful direct action against fracking. If fracking comes to Kent, I will be there, engaging in peaceful direct protest action at the fracking sites, which hopefully hundreds if not thousands of other people will be doing. We only get one chance and fracking, in my opinion, is far too risky a business to allow to happen unchallenged.

The millions of pounds that the government is wasting on supporting and developing the fracking industry – the tax payers money that is being used to enable this industry to develop roots – that money would be better spent on supporting non-polluting, renewable sources of energy, like wind, solar and tidal energy. It would be much better spent on community owned and micro-generation energy capacity in this country.

The money that has been thrown at fracking by this government would be much better spent on a major programme on insulating our homes, our public buildings, our places of work, so that we can massively reduce the demand for energy in the first place.

Another reason why I am passionately opposed to fracking is that the fracking industry is corrupting our democratic system. Let’s begin close to home with Kent County Council, which has legal responsibility for granting planning permission for oil and gas exploration in the second largest in England and I was astonished to find out last year, when Mr Williams’ company was wanting to do some drilling in Kent, that Kent County Council does not provide training for its elected councillors who will be making decisions at a planning committee on whether or not to grant permission for this practice. This is an incredibly complex issue.

I was amazed when Mr Williams’ company was putting in applications that Kent County Council officers had no intention whatsoever of calling public meetings so that the hundreds of villagers living in the affected areas could talk to people about what Mr Williams applications meant. There was an absolute denial of democracy from the decision makers who were going to vote on planning applications and for the men and women in our towns and villages who wanted to talk about it. Kent County Council totally turned off that dialogue. And perhaps that because the grandees who run County Hall in Maidstone have got their orders coming down from Westminster and the party political bosses of the Conservative Party who were probably instructing them not to make a fuss, not to consult, not to train. And that probably goes for the Labour Party and the Lib Dems as well, who have all said fracking is ok if it is regulated.

And it may also be the fact that Kent County Council has got £153m of its pension fund invested in the fracking companies in this country. How can you make a decision about applications for fracking and drilling and exploring for oil and gas when you have got a conflict of interest by investing your pensioners’ money in those companies? It is immoral.

It gets worse. Let’s go further up the political food chain. There must be hundreds of cases of lobbyists wining and dining MPs, ministers, shadow ministers about the benefits of fracking. That must be happening every day of the week in the flash restaurants in London. There’s going to be money given to the offices of MPs and of ministers by fracking companies. There’s going to be researchers provided. They have got their grip on the politicians through the cheque book and through the lobbying industry.

And worst of all, some of the political elite themselves are pimping their knowledge, their influences and their expertise in order to make themselves richer. Lord Smith, a former Labour Party minister, who was until recently the boss of the Environment Agency – who regulate the frackers – he’s got a new job heading the task force looking at improving the image of the fracking industry. And he’s ably assisted by Tory Peer, Baroness Wheatcroft. Lord Browne, director of Cuadrilla and also a cabinet office trouble-shooter. Baroness Hogg, political appointment to the Treasury and non-executive director of BG Group, which is one of the largest US frackers.

Our political institutions from the local town hall right through to the House of Commons and the House of Lords are in the grip of the frackers. They are being paid. They are being influenced. They are being bankrolled in order to take away all of those objections, all of those difficulties that a decent, honest government could put in their way because we are not sure about how safe the industry is.

Our environment is such an important thing that we cannot take chances by allowing people who have been bought and sold by the fracking companies to be making those decisions.