This week in the Merton Council elections we have the opportunity to save our wonderful, award-winning, St Helier Hospital.

If we succeed it will be the defining moment of our lives. It will prove once and for all time that our proud community is united and strong. That we can never be defeated by those vile and evil forces that threaten us, our wives, our children and our grandchildren.

This election is not about politics. It's not about New Labour and the Tories. It's not about our (soon to be) new friends in Tim Farron's reborn Liberal Party. It isn't about Christians and our Muslim brothers and sisters. 

This election is about good and evil.

Thousands of people are going to die, and very soon, if our hospital is not saved today.

For it has never been under more threat than it is right now. Thanks to the utterly undemocratic and brutal Clause 119 in the recent Healthcare UK Reform Bill it is now legally possible for any government health secretary to close any hospital at any time without any requirement for democratic discussion with any community.

It is the most evil act of sabotage against our NHS that has ever come into UK law.

However, those forces that would destroy us know that there is a spanner in the works. It is us. We, the people of Merton, our united great community, can stop that disgusting evil from ever going ahead.

We can show them that we will not be bullied. We will not allow our families to be led into the darkness. We will protect each other.

We will never be defeated by any group of mindless thugs who would knowingly endanger our families. Our community will not be subsumed by the night.

Today, brothers and sisters, is the day we save our hospital.

Michael Barltrop, Merton Labour party supporter