What the?

I’m not sure we’ll ever know why ACORN did this. The story begins a few days ago when Sarah Booker-Lewis (the Local Democracy Reporter based at Brighton & Hove News) contacted me to let me know ACORN were trying to get in touch. On email she introduced us and I confirmed (on Sept 2nd) that I was more than happy to answer their questions on housing for by-election candidates.

Then I waited. I heard nothing back. On Sept 4th a friend told me that ACORN had posted this on Facebook and Instagram:

It had the look of a deliberate smear. Ignoring my email, ACORN wanted to infer that Adrian Hart was simply so indifferent to housing issues, so contemptuous of ACORNs efforts to survey candidate views he REFUSED to answer. This was baffling. I respect ACORN and, having attended local housing conferences and written about our city’s housing crisis many times, I thought they knew me. Or was it a case of some hapless ACORN volunteer forgetting to check the inbox? And another jumping to the conclusion that Hart must be a bad man? Lets warn people not to vote for him!

Sarah Booker-Lewis was equally mystified. And I learned from Sarah that something similar had happened to the Labour candidate Simon Charleton. I emailed ACORNs central office. They came back to me with an unreserved apology: “We have taken the post down and will soon be posting a public apology owning our mistake and clarifying your commitment to our election housing platform. We will also be speaking to members and staff in Brighton to figure out how this mistake was made on our end”.

I thanked Alex from ACORN-central. And eventually (it took hours – and remember, minute by minute, the post slurring me was propagating fast on social media) this:

Under this retraction Alex had the decency to add:
“Adrian added:

I led the Scrap the Plan campaign in 2018 where our streets fought the developer plans for unaffordable housing on Edward St – we lost but the community then won the lease of abandoned council land and that is now White Street Community Garden (a patch of land we were, in 2029, more than willing to hand over for genuine social housing).

I’ve lived in the ward for 21 years. My son, now 21, born in B&H, will NEVER be able to afford to live in the city he was born. Fighting (and properly defining) the housing crisis is PERSONAL for my family.”

However, it was then that news of the hand-delivered ACORN leaflet emerged:

I’m grateful to Sarah and Brighton & Hove News for this article (09/09/25) and, as always, to Julia Basnett for her comment underneath.

ACORN-Central Alex (who I sense is extremely unhappy with ACORN Brighton) soon emails to assure me that a new leaflet will be delivered – and here it is:

Julia’s comment under Sarah’s piece gets it about right:

But why were the ACORN Brighton young guns so eager to round in on me and on the Labour candidate. The Green, Tory and Reform candidates all passed the ACORN 3-question tick-test nicely. ACORN UK describe their union as “a mass membership organisation and network of low-income people organising for a fairer deal for our communities left behind by companies, councils and parliament”. Unsurprisingly, ACORN in Brighton gravitate toward the Labour left and the willingness of Labour to engage on their issues. So, I have a theory. It sits in the context of the collapsing Starmer government. And it centres on how the Labour candidate here, Simon Charleton, associates (apparently) with the ideas of ‘Blue Labour’ and therefore, in the minds of the ACORN young guns, he needs to be taken down a peg or two. Charleton was foisted on Queens Park Labour by MP Chris Ward (close observers note) Our young guns are very woke – under their original negative post about me (now deleted) someone had commented, ‘yes, and he’s anti-trans too’.

Amidst the political amnesia of Brighton, the awful Green council administration that needed to be trounced by the labour left at the May 2023 elections is a moment completely forgotten. The Greens are the new radicals and, in the absence of a Your Party candidate, the woke left are cooing over the young Green candidate Marina Lademacher. A clue to the woke-left take-down of Simon Charleton can be found on the LGBTQ+ site Scene Magazine courtesy of the Green Party. The Scene article is based on a heresy hunt of Charleton’s past X re-posts based on what offends the Green Party. No discussion is needed. Charleton re-posts commentary from writers and campaigners criticising extreme gender ideology, identity politics and uncontrolled migration and BOOM this equals “a candidate who so clearly stands against the values of our city“.

Outside the echo-chamber that Brighton progressive’s inhabit these re-posts are regarded by most as reasonable commentary if not straightforwardly agreeable. Inside the chamber they are examples of transphobia and far-right narratives and therefore heretical. No engagement or debate is necessary, Charleton’s thought-crimes simply need calling-out. And yet it is the heresy hunters that live inside the Brighton bubble who are the outliers (they just don’t know it yet).

The young Green radicals must be celebrating their scalp (ACORN can learn from them I guess). But the creepiest thing of all is the fact that in response to Scene’s take-down Simon Charleton feels forced to recant. A follow-up on Scene quotes the new improved Simon who now says “”I’m aware of historic retweets and comments that have emerged from my social media accounts. These retweets were a mistake and do not represent my views, or those of the local Labour party”. Its very sad. What use is a councillor who cannot speak what he or she believes to be the truth. Now 69, Simon Charleton’s views aged 64 were mistaken it seems – or at least he has new ones now courtesy of the great leader Bella Sankey.