A former charity chief turned mayor candidate says he will end rough sleeping in one year by banning begging and allowing drug users to inject in hostels.
Nick Buckley revealed the plans as he accused politicians of allowing people to die on the streets through “cowardice.”
“Twelve months, that’s all it takes,” he told BTL’s Lee Hall. “It just takes a backbone, some grit and determination.
“The first thing we do is we end begging—begging supports people to live on the streets.
“So we make sure no one can beg in Greater Manchester, especially in the city centres.
“You go to anywhere in Manchester now, outside any supermarket, outside any shops, beggars are there [and] 70/80 percent of them are not even homeless, they are begging just for money for drugs and they’re going to be tomorrow’s rough sleepers.”
Black Lives Matter
Under his plans, the independent candidate said he would open up a series of mayor-owned hostels, where no one would be turned away.“You can take drugs, which are still illegal, by the way, and if we see you with drugs you will be arrested.
“But if we don’t see you inject drugs, you can use that hostel, the same as alcoholics, so any excuses or reasons they’ve got not to accept a bed and get off the streets, I will remove all those.”
Acknowledging the plans would be seen as highly controversial by both politicians and health professionals, Mr. Buckley said: “We’ll do whatever it takes to get them off the streets.
“No more excuses, no more professionals saying it’s a bit dodgy that, ‘that could affect my career., I might get in trouble for that.’
“No, no, no—the mayor will take full responsibility because there are too many cowards in our services. I will take the flack, I will take responsibility, because I know I’m saving lives.”
Mr. Buckley previously ran for Manchester’s mayor role in 2021 under the Reform Party.
He won 2.69 percent of the votes cast and came in fifth place.
His decision to go into politics came less than a year after he was sacked from the charity he founded after a public backlash over comments he made on the Black Lives Matter movement.
In a 570-word blog, Mr. Buckley—who was awarded an MBE for his ground-breaking work with children in Manchester—warned of the “neo-Marxist” policies of the Black Lives Matter UK campaign group, which include tearing down capitalism and abolishing the police.
The charity worker was sacked via email but later returned to his job as chief executive of Mancunian Way after the charity’s board of four trustees resigned.
Nazi
Speaking about the fiasco, Mr. Buckley said his world “fell apart” as he was dubbed a Nazi.He told BTL: “I don’t mind admitting I was a beaten man the first week, I was now Nick the Nazi.
“No one came to my defence. The hundreds of people I’ve worked with—professionals—sent lots of emails, saying what’s gone on is disgraceful. How can they treat you like that? How can they say those things about you? I hope you understand that I can’t say anything online though.”
Mr. Buckley said he decided to mount a “fight back” and legally challenged the decision.
“Within 18 hours, the whole board resigned in disgrace.
“I then approved the new board and they offered me my job back. So all ended well, to a certain extent, but it didn’t really end well because I lost those friends on the board.
“I lost other friends who thought I was racist.”
Despite being reinstated, the award-winning charity worker said the damage done by the slurs resulted in him having to step back from the organisation he founded.
“It was still being attacked for having a Nazi running it,” he said.
“So I had to step back from that, and my life completely changed hence why now I’m standing as a mayor, because unless people stand up and demand change and give change, then we’re just as bad as the people online who who create these hate mobs because it means you’re a coward.”
