UKIP: One Man's Sabotage of a Noble Cause. Part 6

ONE MAN’S SABOTAGE OF A NOBLE CAUSE

Part Six

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four & Part Five can be seen by clicking here & here & here & here & here

Prepared by Derek Hunnikin
UKIP Membership No. 1428

14. Farage embraces Eurofederalism’s SUBSIDIARITY.
By RODNEY ATKINSON

The former leader of the UK Independence Party, Roger Knapman, has rightly attacked the present leader Nigel Farage (both are MEPs) for signing up UKIP to the EU’s (eurofederalist) idea of “subsidiarity”. Nothing could be more dangerous for a party which claims at least to believe in democratic national sovereignty.

Having come within a few votes of winning the UKIP leadership election of 2000, one of the many reasons why I was happy to leave was the evident impossibility (in a party bereft of credible leadership and intellect) of persuading anyone of any real political substance to join and persuade the electorate that we were capable of joining other parties in a sovereignty coalition in Parliament.

Nigel Farage was by no means the only barrier to such credibility but his lack of intellectual rigour was always going to be a major stumbling block. Today we see why. Farage has never maintained a UKIP principle if he was offered financial incentives to abandon it. (My emphasis - DH). Thus, when Paul Sykes offered millions of pounds, the party effectively abandoned its objective of “gaining power to withdraw from the European Union” and instead said they would adopt the methods of other spineless euro-federalist parties and merely “hold a referendum”.

Now Farage and many of his UKIP colleagues in the European Parliament – in order to absorb another vaguely euro-sceptic party from Romania into their “Independence/Democracy Group” in the European Parliament – have embraced the dangerous eurofederalist principle of “subsidiarity”. This, Farage maintains, is “UKIP (voting) for things if they reduce power at the centre.” Subsidiarity is of course nothing of the sort. Far from ceding powers, subsidiarity is the means by which the central sovereign authority (The European Union) maintains its control. It hands down responsibilities not power. It decides what can be handed down to “lower” levels – like the nation states! - and it decides how many responsibilities are passed on. Indeed by passing down responsibilities to the subservient nation states the Centre saves money. It means the nation states have the burden of administration and have to raise the unpopular taxes – the centre, having passed on responsibilities, will not be reducing its budget, of that we can be sure.

So anyone who supports “subidiarity” is not only a fool but a dangerous fool. This latest surrender of principle by UKIP is of course (surprise, surprise!) in order to raise more money and privileges for their MEPs.

In aid of the same money grab UKIP has even changed its policy on the wasteful, disastrous Common Agricultural Policy – it now seeks to “reform it”! Anyone see any euro pigs flying?

The Ind/Dem group signed the declaration because it hopes to recruit the Roman Party Pin and its MEPs in order to keep its numbers high enough to continue to qualify as a “group”. This qualifies them for a lot of money and facilities paid for by the EU Parliament.

Thanks to the additional funding, the Ind/Dem group, including UKIP, is going to move to new offices next month but such benefits would disappear if enough of its MEPs were to split off.

Roger Knapman wrote in his letter on May 13: “I, and a number of my colleagues, cannot in all conscience accept something which represents a major departure from what we believed to be UKIP’s policy – withdrawal from the EU, a complete rejection of its authority (and subsidiarity) and rejection of the Common Agricultural Policy.”

Well done Roger Knapman! But one good man does not a party make! If he cannot convince a substantial number of UKIP MEPs to leave the Ind Dem group on this matter of fundamental principle then UKIP is surely finished.

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15. My experiences of working for Nigel Farage in Brussels.
By JOHN PETLEY

I joined UKIP in 2001, having never before been a member of a political party. I stood as UKIP’s candidate for Lewes in the 2005 General Election. During the campaign, I became acquainted with John Harvey, one of UKIP’s founder members who lives in a village just outside Lewes. It was thanks to John that I was given the chance to work as a researcher in Brussels, starting in January 2006. I went out to Brussels slightly in awe of Nigel Farage, but within a couple of months, my view of him had begun to change. Indeed, by the summer recess of 2006, a mere seven months since coming out to Brussels, I had arrived at the conclusion that Nigel Farage was a liability to the party. There were several reasons for this. Firstly, I was concerned about the rumours about his sexual impropriety, including that he was having an affair with Annabelle Fuller, one of my colleagues in Brussels at the time. Also, and even more worryingly, was the fact that cronyism rather than competence seemed to be what counted. All the researchers who I regarded as competent ended up being thrown out, while others who are totally unsuitable are still working there!

Nigel’s sincerity also leaves much to be desired. I heard from a colleague about a conversation between Farage and Gerard Batten shortly before the 2006 Bromley by-election. It transpired that Farage had discussed a deal with the Tories whereby if they selected the Eurosceptic but not withdrawalist MEP Syed Kamall as their candidate, UKIP would not put up a candidate. On hearing of this, Gerard was incensed and said, “If you don’t stand, I will.” As it happened, the Tories chose Bob Neill, and with Gerard being the ultra-loyalist that he is, he chose not to leak this out. Nigel then announced at a big UKIP meeting the following weekend about how excited he was at being able to contest another by-election. Most people cheered. I was livid.

Indeed, Nigel has lied - to me and to other party members. In March 2007, David Abbott’s $100 donation to what had turned out to be a BNP support group in America was blown up in the national media in March 2007 simply because of David’s criticism of Nigel’s leadership. Before standing for the NEC, David came quite clean about this donation. He did not want to stand for office if it would compromise him. Being so insignificant a sum, a one-off and inadvertent, Nigel and others said it was not a problem. However, when David began to start opposing Nigel on the NEC, Nigel deliberately leaked this out to the press and made it out that David had been seriously involved with the BNP (which wasn’t remotely true). When I challenged Nigel, saying that either he or Mark Croucher were ill-advised to have done this, his reply was "Neither I nor Croucher contacted the Press." The press had also spoken to a person I know who has held senior office in the party about the David Abbott business, and this person told me that when the reporter concerned rang up, he said, "I've just been speaking to Mark Croucher."

Did Nigel lie about the “Bucharest declaration” – which supported subsidiarity (not withdrawal) and reform (not abolition) of the Common Agricultural Policy and which was signed by a number of MEPs including UKIP’s Derek Clark? Certainly, when party members rang up the South East Regional office in anger about the Bucharest declaration, they were told it was nothing to do with Nigel. Only when it became apparent that too many copies of the e-mail proving he had a hand in its wording were in circulation (I still have a copy at home) did the line change.

Nigel also blew his top over things. He once came into my office and ranted at me because I had contacted Mike Nattrass (whose assistant I was for a while) about a dubious amendment to a piece of Parliamentary legislation put forward at Committee stage by Jens-Peter Bonde, Ind Dem Co-president, in the name of the group. A colleague of mine had spotted this amendment and said that UKIP MEPs couldn’t support it, as it was giving more power to the EU (I can’t remember the exact details beyond this). I thought I had better tell Mike, and Mike must have contacted Nigel, who then stormed in and said, “But we always vote against this in Plenary.” I guess Nigel knew I wasn’t happy with UKIP MEPs being in the Ind Dem group. I did not discover until I went to Brussels that NONE of the other MEPs in Ind Dem were withdrawalists. Bonde had been, but after 11 years admitted he had changed his position to “reformist” Interestingly enough, when was the last time anyone heard Nigel talk about outright withdrawal?

If Nigel became aware that any staff were in any way unhappy with him, even if they were not working directly for him, life became very uncomfortable. The atmosphere in the offices from February 2008 to my departure in April gave me an inkling of what it must have been like to live in the Soviet Union – You were always watching your back and every pair of footsteps outside the office door made you feel uneasy. So bizarre that fellow-withdrawalists should be the cause of such a poisonous atmosphere. I have to say that in over two years working in Brussels, I had no animosity from the “nasty” EU. UKIP staff were treated fairly.

My dismissal shows the utterly devious nature of Nigel Farage. He was not directly involved, but his fingerprints are all over it. It all began on Monday 7th April 2008, after Roger Knapman’s “Stop the Treaty” conference in Bristol the previous Saturday which I had gone to. When I got back to Brussels, I tried to access my parliamentary e-mail account, but was unable to do so. I entered the password about 10 times, but was repeatedly blocked. I know that I did not type in my password incorrectly. Having worked in IT before going into political research, I knew hacking when I saw it. The hacker had, fortunately, failed to guess my password, but had locked me out. I spoke to Oumar Dombouya, the man delegated to manage IT affairs for Ind Dem. He re-set my password and set a monitoring facility on my account, as one of my colleagues had had a similar problem, and suspected hacking.

On Thursday afternoon (10th April), Graham Booth came into my office with a print-out of the names, subjects and dates of the e-mails I had sent in recent weeks. He asked me to print out the contents of four of these. After he had left the office, I looked at a couple of these e-mails on my computer, and as I was doing so, the access to my e-mail account suddenly went down. When I eventually was able to bring up the initial screen and try to sign on, once again, I was locked out, just as I had been the previous Monday.

I subsequently discovered that it is within the rules to print out the list (although not the content) of the e-mails sent by EP staff without asking them. However, I did not know this at the time, and refused to take Booth‘s word that this was the case or provide him with the content of these e-mails until I could establish the facts. In view of my suspicions about someone trying to tamper with my e-mails, I think this was quite reasonable. However, his response to my refusal was by saying that in his eyes, this amounted to a “lack of trust” in me. This was the catch-all phrase that can be used to dismiss staff if you don’t like them but can’t find any good reason for sacking them. I had always got on fairly well with Graham until then, and I know Nigel set him up, because he expressed a very negative opinion of one person to whom these e-mails were sent (a branch chairman in the South East) and when I contacted this individual, he said that he had never had any dealings with Graham. Only Nigel could have singled out this e-mail.

Oumar was very helpful initially to my attempts to find out who had been hacking into my account. He traced it to a UK-registered machine (no surprise!) but could not go any further because of intimidation by Hermann Verheirstraten, a senior member of the Ind Dem secretariat. He subsequently kept his distance from me, simply out of fear.

My dismissal was e-mailed to me on Thursday 24th April. This was during a Strasbourg plenary, and I was teleworking at the time. Quite honestly, it was a relief not to have to go back to Brussels. It amazed me to hear afterwards from the late Piers Merchant that Graham Booth had been going round the South West telling people that I (along with two other researchers) were MI5 spies!

Meanwhile, Steve Harris, UKIP’s South East regional organiser, again no doubt mouthing Nigel’s words, has been telling people in the South East that my dismissal was because I was hacking into other people’s e-mails!

I made a statement about this illegal hacking to the Belgian police. I have copies of the documents at home.

Nigel also has failed to develop UKIP as a serious domestic force at home. I heard him speak at Hastings in November 2005, just before I started in Brussels. He said something on the lines of, “Well, UKIP isn’t getting much exposure because the EU isn’t in the news much now, but just wait - it’ll be back on the agenda.” He was proved right with a vengeance when the failed Constitution metamorphosised into the Lisbon Treaty, but he singularly missed the opportunity to put UKIP at the head of the campaign to oppose it. It was always going to be a tough battle to stop the treaty, but it would have put the party back in the consciousness of the electorate. Instead, it was left to an ordinary Party member to launch the “Parish Polls” initiative. On the day of the mass lobby of the House of Commons, Farage was in Brussels. I know, because I heard his voice in the corridor outside my office. This missed opportunity, for which he must take the blame, must represent UKIP’s biggest political mistake in its entire history.

He has also failed to educate the party’s rank and file. Many of those who joined UKIP, myself included, were new to politics. We could see that being in the EU was not in Britain’s best interests, but did not necessarily combine this piece of wisdom with political discernment. I would guess I am not alone in admitting that at one point, I believed that anything in print that says something bad about the EU must be correct. I now realise that this isn’t true, but I still hear of party members who innocently swallow all manner of daft conspiracy theories. Shortly before my sacking, at my own initiative, I wrote a little leaflet, called the UKIP Mythbuster, to try to separate fact and fiction. UKIP had had MEPs for 8½ years by then, and the necessary resources to have produced something of this nature several years earlier, but Farage never took any steps to produce something which would have stopped well-meaning UKIP activists from dropping clangers.

Hard though it is to say it, when I was in Brussels, what I saw in the main was a bungling bunch of amateurs. There were, indeed still are, some honourable exceptions, such as Gerard Batten, but if one incident sticks in my mind which shows how Nigel cannot be taken seriously as a politician, let alone as the No. 1 spokesman for the withdrawalist cause, it was the infamous “Chicken Costume” incident in Strasbourg in 2008. I can vouch for this being Nigel’s idea. When three staff members dressed up as chickens (Gawain Towler, Paul Nuttall and Ralph Atkinson) were escorted from the area near the Hemicycle by the security staff, it led to a very heated but almost surreal press conference, firstly with Gawain (still in his costume minus the chicken head!) and then Nigel, complaining bitterly to the media that the reason we were being treated unfairly in not being allowed to parade around in these outfits was because we opposed the Lisbon Treaty. What nonsense! No wonder the rest of the European Parliament saw UKIP as a bit of a joke.

And the blame for this must be placed at the door of its leader. My experience in Brussels has led me to the conclusion that Farage is an obstacle to British withdrawal from the EU. He arranges these stunts and does his “sound bytes” for the media, but what does this contribute to helping us get out of the EU? He has never been able to sell to the British public any vision of just how much life could improve if Britain regains its independence. His whole focus is in Brussels, where he rules the roost with an iron grip, attacking anyone who he sees as a threat or an independent-minded thinker. What does he care for the hard-working party rank and file in the UK, who have given their money and time for him to live the life of Riley over there? Having seen the European Parliament in action, I left Brussels more convinced than ever that our once great land should regain its independence and withdraw from this miserable failure called the European Union, but I am also convinced that the process would be hastened greatly if UKIP could disown that miserable failure called Nigel Farage.

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16. DR. ERIC EDMOND

Elected to UKIP’s National Executive Committee in 2008, and selected by the South West Region as a prospective MEP in the 2009 Euro Elections, Dr.Edmond was educated at Edinburgh & Oxford University where he was taught by Mrs Thatcher's old tutor, Dorothy Hodgkin.

He was in the Civil Service 71/73 during Heath's Common Market Entry - resigned in disgust, and was a Liverpool University Lecturer 74/96.

Later, he was a Bank of England market mathematician 98/03 preparing Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) briefings and working with other central banks.

Here follows a statement by Eric Edmond UKIP MEP Candidate SW Region European Elections in 2009.

What I will do if chosen and elected

• Use the letters MEP to keep the UKIP name and brand in the UK media as much as possible.

• Go to Brussels as little as possible. I would prefer not to go at all like the IRA did when elected to Westminster. The IRA won. I want to win.

• I will use every trick and tactic to obstruct the EU.

• Euro Assembly as Mrs Thatcher always called it is a pointless talking shop and I will show it as that.

• Give all salary to UKIP – some £40k pa.

• I will not employ any members of my family.

• Visit every South West Branch each year.

• Contact & lunch local paper & TV editors all the time – use MEP expenses for that!

What I believe in

• Equality and equal opportunity for all irrespective of colour creed or religion.

• Rule of Law and true honest democracy.

• I will always put my country’s interests before party interests.

• I want our country back for our children.

• I want a country with a reducing population & a rising GDP/capita and standard of living.

• I want UK citizenship to have to be earned by 15 years of honest work and a clean criminal record.

• I want real democracy with frequent referendums when the citizens want one

• I want a country like Switzerland with an EU trade agreement like the Swiss one

• I want to copy the Swiss rules for immigration and asylum.

• I don’t want a country for self-important greedy political careerists.

• I don’t want the EU that tries to run the world – like Napoleon and Hitler.

• I don’t want to be in a 4th Reich or Holy Roman Empire called the EU.

• If we had stayed out of Europe in 1914 my family and the country would have benefited hugely.

My strategy to get out of the EU

The Euro is central to the EU project. It needs a state to back it, hence the Lisbon Treaty. I know where its weakness lies. I will write and talk endlessly about the weakness in the Euro and hence undermine the EU

I will cultivate our core vote of retired people who know what this country was before Major, Blair, and Brown.

I will go for the over-taxed middle class vote

Only the UK parliament can get us out of the EU and I will work to get UKIP MPs elected and force other parties to back us in a repeal of Heath's 1972 European Act

What I promise - I will live up to the motto of the city of my birth, Leith, and I will Persevere to get us out of the EU in my lifetime
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The removal of Dr Edmond from the list of prospective MEPs - from Junius. (juniusonukip.blogspot.com).

Note: Dr Edmond has confirmed in an e-mail to me that what you read below is true.

On Friday 13th February 2009 the NEC decided to remove Dr Edmond as an MEP candidate. It is pointed out that Dr Edmond was not informed that he was to be on the NEC agenda. He was not given an opportunity to defend himself, and the South West Committee was not informed of the NEC decision.

The following day Nigel Farage travelled to Lexdrum House to meet the South West Committee.

Those present included:

Jeff Mager, Malcolm Wood, David Bendall, Trevor Colman, Elizabeth Burton and Graham Booth.

It was pointed out in a letter signed by Piers Merchant and Roger Knapman that the meeting was unlawful as the committee members had not been given the designated 21 days notice. As you can imagine Farage became extremely agitated after seeing this letter.

The purpose of the meeting was to de-select Dr Edmond as an MEP candidate. However, this could not be done as the meeting had not been properly constituted.

Farage was forced to admit that the NEC had already decided to remove Dr Edmond from the MEP list. The committee was less than impressed with this revelation and pointed out to a now agitated Farage that any decision to remove Dr Edmond should have been left to them as they represented the people who originally selected him.

Farage then accused Dr Edmond of disrupting NEC meetings. He also claimed that he had been removed from the NEC for reporting UKIP to the Electoral Commission.

Farage was lying.

As a member of UKIP’s NEC Dr Edmond had been jointly and severally liable for UKIP’s debts. He had simply written to the Commission AFTER his removal from the NEC informing them that he was no longer liable for any future debts.

I should add that Dr Edmond had also written to Dr Whittaker requesting details of all financial transaction made during his time on the NEC. Dr Whittaker ignored his request.

It was decided to remove Dr Edmond from the committee. They also confirmed his removal from the MEP list. He has also been banned from holding ANY office within UKIP.

Dr Edmond is set to be thrown out of UKIP when the proposed changes are approved.

Please remember that ALL decisions made at this meeting were unlawful because it was not properly constituted. I would urge all South West members to refuse to accept the decision of this ‘committee’. They should also demand the immediate reinstatement of Dr Edmond as both an MEP candidate and committee member.

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Thursday, 10 February 2011

Why Farage's UKIP is not fit for purpose

UKIP needs more members, more talent and more UK effort to even start on the road to getting our country back by repealing the 1972 European Communities Act. Since Farage and his Cabal have taken control of UKIP membership has fallen steadily, activists, the life blood of any political party who disagree with Farage have been kicked out, and sycophantic placemen put into all the important party positions. No serious political party carries on like this. You only see this behaviour in cults where a gullible and uncritical membership are conned by, and blindly supports, a corrupt leadership whose only interest is in lining their own pockets.

Look at those at the top of UKIP enjoying a luxurious cosseted lifestyle set up by the EU but paid for ultimately by UK taxpayers. They are tame, pampered, toothless EU poodles kept in Brussels who give Barroso and the other Eurocrats democratic credibility by enabling them to claim they tolerate anti-EU parties. Its tokenism plain and simple. Ask the brothers or the sisterhood.

The lack of talent in the current UKIP leadership is staggering. Look at the elderly, self satisfied Derek Clark, UKIP MEP for the East Midlands but seldom seen there. Under him UKIP in the East Midlands has gone from the strongest region in the country in the heyday of Robert Kilroy-Silk to one of closed and zombie branches with a few deeply unhappy remaining members. It’s a microcosm of what is happening to UKIP over the whole UK. Godfrey Bloom UKIP MEP for Yorkshire is an embarrassment with his crass public behaviour. Bannerman, Dartmouth and Farage are ex-Tories whose political ambitions were judged by the Tory party to be far in excess of their limited talents and deemed not to be worthy of a safe Tory parliamentary seat. Given the low standard of the average Tory MP that is a pretty damning verdict.

Honesty and integrity can make up for lack of ability but even in that UKIP is lacking. When was Andreasen last seen in the South East region she was elected to represent? Why does Trevor Colman sit in Brussels with Farage's nasty neo-Nazi, mid-European associates. How many relatives of UKIP members died at the hands of the Nazis in the Second World War? Do the ordinary UKIP members know their cult leader associates with neo-Nazi parties in Brussels? I think not. Nikki Sinclaire has shown how effective honesty, integrity and consistency can be in opposing the EU. Not surprising then she was kicked out of UKIP.

Why is Malcolm Pearson, Farage's puppet leader of UKIP, a man who at the last General Election campaigned for the Tories, still in the UKIP ruling group? Could this happen in any other party? I don't think so.

Then we have ex-chairman Nuttall MEP who counts success as defeating the BNP for 4th place in elections. UKIP is supposed to be about getting us out of the EU and the best way to handle the BNP is to ignore them! Comrade Nuttall would do better to address the needs of the jobless of Merseyside and try and recruit them for UKIP.

There is also UKIP's top management, Crowther and Duffy. No significant management track record and no organisational ability seems to sum them up. The current NEC is full of wannabe MEPs or more correctly wannabe on the gravy train who are therefore beholden to Farage for preferment.

There are many able and talented people who want us out of the EU but how many will want to join a cult party which measures its success by the leader’s appearances and applause on Question Time (QT). It’s only MPs in Westminster that can get us out of the EU. This needs organisation and hard work in local elections addressing the issues of jobs, schools and health that impinge on peoples lives and earns their trust to vote for UKIP when it matters. It needs a leader who attracts people in, not one who kicks people out. Until Farage and his clique go this will not change. UKIP numbers will continue to decline, the sycophants will squabble about getting onto the EU gravy train, the BBC will continue to massage Farage's vanity with QT invites etc., and UKIP will continue to slide into the garbage can of history.

I pray I will someday see our country free from the EU but clearly Farage's UKIP will play no part in our freedom struggle.

All the stuff I have ever written about Farage and his cabal over the last 3 years is in my blog click http://ukiptruth.blogspot.com/ to read.

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As a former UKIP member said: “A party that encourages half truths and anonymous lies that seek to destroy a member’s good name forfeits its claim to loyalty from its members.”

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UKIP: One Man's Sabotage of a Noble Cause. Part 5

ONE MAN’S SABOTAGE OF A NOBLE CAUSE

Part Five

Part One, Part Two, Part Three & Part Four can be seen by clicking here & here & here & here

Prepared by Derek Hunnikin
UKIP Membership No. 1428

11. The Ashford Call Centre. The full article can be read here

12. ROBIN PAGE

A letter to NEC members giving his version of the events which led to him not being included in the prospective MEP list for the 2009 EU elections.

A letter to NEC members giving his version of the events which led to him not being included in the prospective MEP list for the 2009 EU elections.

Dear Members of the NEC,

I am sorry not to have been in contact with you earlier, but my latest book has just been published - it is flying out through Telegraph Books you will be pleased to hear. I am also involved in a number of articles for the Mail on Sunday which have been very time consuming, in addition to all my other activities and responsibilities.

This is to inform you that the so-called "election" for Euro-selection for the Eastern Region is invalid. I would therefore ask you to put the election on hold immediately. I am writing to Piers Merchant asking him to do this in his capacity of Returning Officer. I assume he is supposed to be independent and not simply a "gofer" for Leader Farage.

My own view is that the election cannot be transparent and the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) should conduct it. I understand that Nigel is opposed to this very normal procedure; I wonder why? Incidentally, the National Trust Council Elections are held under the watchful eye of the ERS and as a result I became only the second person ever to have been elected onto the Council against the wishes of the NT's hierarchy. Not only that, but I comfortably topped the poll last time. It makes me wonder why I have been cheated out of standing in this UKIP poll and "cheated" can be the only adequate word to use.

I must remind you that David Challice asked me to pay my £250 to become part of the procedure. This was paid on 13.5.2008, by Visa, and HAS NOT BEEN RETURNED. My solicitor tells me that acceptance of the money constitutes a contract and I must therefore be included in the selection process - whether Mr.Farage wants this to be the case or not. He may be leader but he is not a dictator and he is not above the Law. Apparently at the NEC meeting, which should have resolved this issue properly and honestly, it was Mr.Farage's Putinesque behaviour that had his automated members of the NEC voting that the issue should be handled, in my view, improperly and dishonestly. Is this the same UKIP that claims that "honesty" is one of its main drive-engines in its battle with Europe? Sadly the sleaze of Europe seems to have swamped many of those leading UKIP and any "sleaze ratio analysis" of political parties in Britain would now surely have UKIP top of the league. My aim in continued membership of UKIP is to get it fighting as an honest, electable party again and because of this I shall be standing in the NEC elections next time. I will be asking for them to be conducted by the ERS to prevent any chance of malpractice and rigging.

To remind you - although you all know the situation. Despite being in a position to complete the various forms by the required date for Euro-selection - Peter Reeve and David Challice gave me another route that was far simpler for me at the time. It meant paying the money, sending the CRB forms and sending my nominations as soon as I returned from my research trip. This was agreed - if Reeve and Challis are honest, then I am sure they will confirm this. Consequently the NEC should have said - "Yes you were mis-directed, but it is our fault – you are part of the selection process". But no - that was too simple, too transparent and too honest. Incredibly too - I understand that Peter Reeve's partner remained in the NEC meeting to vote against me – which again should make the vote invalid.

Incidentally - this is the exact version of the events. After thirty-eight years of national journalism I have never been accused of lying - and I am not now; I have never been sued for libel.

I am also concerned that after explaining the situation I have never had an explanation as to why mistakes by UKIP members of staff have penalised me. When I told Nigel that Christopher Gill had not had the courtesy to explain things to me, Nigel was very uncomplimentary about him and described him as "unprofessional". Nigel has since been similarly "unprofessional", in my view.

Consequently I am now asking you to cancel the election process for the East and to fulfil your legal obligations.

I am afraid that I will be writing articles about all this in due course and issuing a Press Release. I have accepted several UKIP branch speaking engagements recently and I will be telling those present of the current state of affairs at the top of UKIP. I will also be informing our two UKIP Lords of the situation.

I will also be writing to Nigel Farage in the near future - I will be sending copies to you. I am sorry too that I have not been invited to speak at the UKIP Conference - I presume no invitation means that I have been banned. Never mind - I did address 10,000 people the other day. After-wards several people approached to ask me if I would be standing for UKIP at the Europeans. I told them the position and they were duly shocked. News of sleaze travels fast and far - I have had telephone calls from as far afield as Scotland and Devon asking "Is it true?" The simple answer has been "Yes." I hope those of you whose personal ambitions have been put before integrity are satisfied. It is no mean feat to actually turn a small party into an even smaller one - well done to those responsible.

I hope to hear something positive soon and I hope that for the sake of transparency John West will get a fair deal too. The breach of the criminal law against somebody who has worked so hard for UKIP is a disgrace. It seems to me that over the next couple of years the white prison vans could be kept very busy. Presumably the amount of sleaze within UKIP is why some of us, who say things as they are, have been deliberately side-lined.

Yours sincerely,

Robin Page

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Why Ukip has just lost another member

The grassroots are good people, but the party has been stolen from them, argues Robin Page.

Reprinted here is the article that appeared in The Daily Telegraph dated 2nd March 2009. It is followed by Farage’s letter which appeared on the following day.

I have just helped the United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip). I have jumped ship. It is a small party whose main wish at the moment seems to be a desire to become even smaller; so I did my bit and resigned.

Why now? Surely Ukip was on the verge of a great political breakthrough? After the 2004 European Elections, Ukip rode the crest of a wave with 12 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), 2.7 million votes, 16.8% of the vote and membership of 26,000. But now, as the next round of Euro elections approaches, the great breakthrough has turned into break-up.

Ukip’s 12 European parliamentarians have, by defection and expulsion, dropped to nine – and one has even left his constituency to live elsewhere, without telling his constituents. At the Henley by-election last year, the party finished sixth, behind both the Greens and the BNP with just 2.4% of the vote. Membership is down to 14,000 (sorry, make that 13,999) and on the slide. To make matters worse there are accusations of rigged internal elections, tales of extravagance and high living in Brussels, and an embarrassing stampede to try to board the European gravy train this June. In short, Ukip is in the process of imploding. I have absolutely no personal political ambition whatsoever. For me the summer was going to involve seeing gorillas in the Congo for Telegraph Week-end and visiting St Kilda for the first time. I was encouraged to stand as a Ukip candidate because of my concern about the state of my country and I reluctantly agreed. Because of a farcical series of accidents, health problems and other commitments, I had a special dispensation to submit my papers a few days late. Or at least I thought I had.

When I contacted the officials as arranged they told me I was out of time. So I phoned Nigel Farage, Ukip’s Blair-like, ex-public school leader, who said he was very sorry and would do his best to sort things out, but “it’ll be up to the Political Committee”. He came back later with bad news. “The Political Committee won’t accept your late documents, I’m really sorry.” I have since found out Mr Farage is Ukip’s Political Committee. It runs at his whim with no obvious agenda or minutes. Piers Merchant, a former Tory MP who is now Ukip’s Returning Officer, informed me that the process was “flawed” and that there should be a re-run. But there has been no re-run and Ukip refuses to send me a copy of the Returning Officer’s report, even after a Data Protection Act request.

It seems that Nigel Farage has managed to obtain almost complete centralised power of Ukip. Other late nominations were apparently accepted, some people heading MEP lists have been forced out to be replaced by others, and three members of Ukip’s National Executive Council were expelled for criticising the leader. Other high-profile Ukip members have also been removed over the years, so as not to threaten Farage’s control or image. The party’s own policies – such as opposition to genetically modified crops – have been reversed without the membership knowing, including me. Stories from Brussels suggest that Ukip’s MEPs have come to love the high life of gravy and status. The party created to fight centralised government, sleaze and corruption, has become a mirror image of the body it professes to loathe. The grassroots of Ukip are good people, but their party has been stolen from them by their executive; and with David Cameron seemingly afraid to say the word “Europe”, they have nowhere to go – unless lured by the false smile of the BNP.

Just under 2,000 years ago Tacitus wrote words to the effect: “Britons are very good at being Roman. They like the baths, the forum and they think they are becoming Roman whereas in fact these devices enslave them to Rome.” Replace Britons with “Ukip MEPs”, and Roman with “European”, and the disintegration of Ukip is explained.

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Nigel Farage’s response to the above was printed in The Daily Telegraph the following day – and is reproduced below.

SIR – I was interested to read Robin Page’s article (“Why Ukip lost another member”, Comment, March 2) in which he professes to have “no personal political ambition whatsoever”.

There was a nine month period for nominations for Ukip candidates; Mr Page telephoned me with two days to go and we relaxed the rules (which I now regret). We asked him to submit his papers – which he failed to do after a further fortnight’s grace.

I admit that, since 2004, Ukip has had some difficult times – especially in 2005, when Robert Kilroy-Silk sought to inflict maximum damage. Since then, Ukip has changed. Membership and candidate lists are younger and more diverse. I have also introduced tougher discipline and anyone linked with extremism is removed. The election of Marta Andreasen, the Spanish former EU accountant, to a winnable position on the MEP candidate list has upset the reactionaries.

It is easy to say that Ukip’s MEPs are on the “gravy train”, but the evidence is different. Several have been major donors to the party and large sums have been promised to this year’s campaign. This is not the behaviour of those intent on personal financial gain.

We are going to fight a vigorous campaign on issues that matter to voters. We will not allow the anti-EU voice in Britain to belong to extremists.

Nigel Farage MEP
Ukip Leader
London W1

13. Del Young

A former member of the National Executive Committee with responsibility for ’UKIP Youth’.

A letter, written by fellow NEC member Dr David Abbott, dated 30th November 2007 is reproduced in full below.

To whom it may concern

Del Young’s treatment at the hands of the NEC at its most recent meeting resembled a Stalinist show trial. Del had founded UKIP Youth. He presented a report on its activities to the NEC at every meeting. (At least his report was always on the agenda, but the meeting frequently did not reach this agenda item).

At the November meeting, before the agenda item was reached, it was announced that Wayne Harling was downstairs and we should interrupt the agenda in order to hear him.

Wayne Harling was a member of the Youth Council, which had made a good impression at UKIP’s recent conference. However, it transpired that Del had removed him from his position due to lack of initiative. I learnt this when Wayne Harling was shown into the room. He sat next to me, and addressed the NEC by reading out from a printed-out sheet where he had listed multiple complaints about Del. There were many accusations that Del had made negative criticisms about the party leadership. Del vehemently denied these charges.

Mr Harling’s appearance was not part of the agenda, but it appeared to come as no surprise to the bulk of NEC members, though it surprised Del and myself. Clearly if Del had known in advance of this ambush, he would have produced the email and other documentation which would have refuted many of Mr Harling’s accusations.

That it is no crime to deplore the leadership is surely a given in a free society. In any case, Del denied those charges, but was given no opportunity to refute them in any detail.

Harling and Del Young left the room while the matter was discussed. It was clear that most NEC members had already made their decision. The motion was put that Del’s resignation as leader of the youth movement should be accepted. This was despite the fact that Del had not in fact submitted his resignation. I was the only one to vote against the motion.

I think that any decent person would agree that the NEC’s actions were un-British, unfair, and unprofessional. I am not making any judgement about the justice of Del Young’s dismissal. I think most people would agree that it was preposterous to handle his dismissal at the NEC meeting in so shabby a fashion.

Del requested a copy of the statement that Mr Harling read at the meeting. Harling said that he would send him a copy. As of a few days ago, it had not been received.

Del deserves all our thanks for making a valiant attempt to establish a successful youth movement.

There is a reason why the boards of every profitable business in the City operate according to respected rules of conduct. If they did not their business would fail.

Sincerely yours,
David F. Abbott, MD

UKIP: One Man's Sabotage of a Noble Cause. Part 4

ONE MAN’S SABOTAGE OF A NOBLE CAUSE

Part Four

Part One, Part Two and Part Three can be seen by clicking here & here & here

Prepared by Derek Hunnikin
UKIP Membership No. 1428

8. UKIP WEST DORSET CONSTITUENCY ASSOCIATION

A letter to the then Party Chairman, from the West Dorset Constituency Association, dated 1st November 2006, reads as follow:

Dear Dr. Whittaker,

It is with deep regret, and a lot of heart searching, that the under mentioned members of the UK Independence Party, West Dorset Constituency Association committee, tender their resignations.

In the 2004 EU elections, UKIP came second in West Dorset, elected two MEPs and beat the Lib/Dems into third place. We felt we were on a roll. Our moment had come when the United Kingdom was waking up. We then had to put up with the ignominy of watching our leaders scrapping with Robert Kilroy-Silk in public, resulting in many good workers leaving UKIP and following RKS into Veritas. That, we feel, was the beginning of the end.

Our leaders squandered the goodwill that members of the party had worked hard to build up during the Euro Election. They did nothing to take the party forward, and we were left rudderless at the one time in the party’s existence when it could have become a serious contender for Westminster.

The MEPs have secured for themselves lucrative jobs, but what has happened to the cash they were going to inject into the Party? Instead, UKIP is relying on money from the very Commission we are supposed to despise and want to destroy. We would remind these MEPs that the public voted for the Party, not for them personally.

The leadership campaign was a disgrace. Lies and scurrilous accusations were made. These were not counteracted by the leadership, and now it is over, there have been no apologies and no offers of the hand of friendship. The questions about the Ashford Call Centre have not been answered, and the new Treasurer has stated that he won’t be looking at the accounts prior to his takeover. Nigel Farage has now declared that UKIP will not stand against BOO (Better Off Out) candidates.

We had high hopes that when a new leader was elected things would change for the better, and the Party would move forward. It is now obvious that Nigel Farage, and other MEPs, do not want the UK Independence Party to be a Party at all. They merely want a pressure group for the Conservatives. This view is substantiated by the news from the recent Conference.

We can see no valid reason to work for a Party that is obviously not going to achieve anything we want, and does not offer the voters a true opposition to the three main parties.

Yours sincerely,

L. K. Hansford, Chairman.
M. Stringfellow, Secretary.
D. Dixon, Treasurer.
J. Bolton.
O. Blackburn.
D.Matthews.
L. A. Harris.
C. Sparkes.
T. Greenaway.

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9. EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER OF RESIGNATION FROM UKIP BY VISCOUNT EXMOUTH

Downloaded from the internet on 6th February 2007.

I hereby resign as a member of the UK Independence Party.

At the MEP Candidate Selection Meetings I expressed my views of the manner in which the leadership was running our campaign and the results of such. My worst fears have been realised.

In the last year ordinary Party members have been betrayed by incompetence, naivety and waste.

The leadership whilst referring to rogues and knaves in every other Party appears to have behaved in a manner, matching that description, in regard to its own staff and office relocation.

I am disturbed by much else, not least our association with that Master of Sleaze, Max Clifford. Given the way the leadership behaves, it is perhaps an apt choice.

This is no longer a Party I wish to be associated with.

10. DR. DAVID ABBOTT, MD MRCP

November 2008

Dr. David Abbott, a respected medical doctor and committed Christian, who puts honesty and openness before self interest, speaks out:

UKIP: One Man's Sabotage of a Noble Cause. Part 3

ONE MAN’S SABOTAGE
OF A NOBLE CAUSE

Part Three

Part One and Part Two can be seen by clicking here & here

Prepared by Derek Hunnikin
UKIP Membership No. 1428

5. DR. RICHARD NORTH

Christopher Booker and Dr. Richard North co-authored several books on the saga of how we were persuaded, by lying and incompetent politicians, into joining the ‘Common Market’ and the devastation membership has caused to our farming, fishing, industries, legal system, and much else.

The two most readable books are ‘The Castle of Lies’ and ‘The Great Deception’. To this day, many articles in The Sunday Telegraph, by Christopher Booker, owe some of the research needed for their production to Dr. North.

(Note: In my view, if all who have influence on our nation’s fortunes had read ‘The Castle of Lies’ within three years of its publication in 1995, then there is every chance we would have left the EU by 2000).

For four years Dr. North was employed as a Chief Researcher for UKIP in Brussels. I think it was in 2004 that Dr. North wrote:

Any claim that UKIP is a ‘right wing party’ is a nonsense. It is, in effect, a one-man party …. the Farage Party. Although he is lauded as the most prominent and effective of members, that is largely of Farage’s making.

Having sat at the desk opposite him and worked very closely with him for four years, I have come to the view that the man has a complete inability to delegate and is also terminally insecure. This latter defect means he cannot tolerate anyone around him or in the Party who he feels is or might be in a position to challenge him. He prefers to surround himself with incompetents and dead-beats and prevents anyone with talent developing. Anyone who emerges who might show an independent streak, he ruthlessly eliminates, to ensure they cannot be seen as competition. He holds the reins of power to himself – acting through surrogates whom he can control or marginalise – and spends the bulk of his time manoeuvring and scheming to keep himself in the dominant position, while presenting to the world his “boyish charm” that effectively conceals his utterly focused grip on that power.

Thus, while he was just what UKIP needed in the very early stages, he has failed to develop with the party and now is the central reason why UKIP itself has failed to develop. Any attempt to develop structures and capabilities that do not revolve around Farage he has failed to support and, if it looks like being effective, he moves heaven and earth to sabotage it. In so doing he has developed a singular expertise for diverting attention – and therefore blame – from himself, not least through exploiting his knowledge of the party to set people against each other, so that he can fade into the background while they fight each other. As long as he is in place, with his grip on the party, that will continue to be the case. The sooner the party wakes up to this, the better.

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Alan Sked, former leader of UKIP, wrote in 2004:

I write this article more in sorrow than in anger. I was proud to found the UK Independence Party and I still avidly support the cause. However, since I quit the Party in 1997, I have been disturbed by developments inside it and disagree on principle with its obsession with gaining seats in next month’s elections in the European Parliament. The introduction of a list system of proportional representation has made it relatively easy for it to win seats (and huge salaries and expenses) in Strasbourg with votes that would just scrape past deposit-saving levels in Westminster elections. Meanwhile, the party has given up thinking about any policies and its active base is down to around 1,200 people, if internal voting figures are anything to go by.

What possible purpose has been served by sending UKIP MEPs to Strasbourg? The European Parliament has no power to grant or further UK independence. In addition, who has heard of the UKIP’s MEPs? Their only monument has been the laughter occasioned by the maiden speeches of Michael Holmes, who called for greater powers for the European Parliament – not exactly UKIP policy – and Graham Booth whose incomprehensible speech in Devonian even managed to insult his Cornish and Somerset constituents. (He later apologised).

Worst still, the extra-parliamentary behaviour of the party’s de facto leader, the MEP Nigel Farage, led UKIP’s research director, Dr Richard North, to resign, saying: “I am not and was not prepared to be a bag-carrier. Nor would I fetch and carry for Farage, or write his letters, or be available to pour him into a taxi when he was so blind drunk that he could no longer stand, or cover for him when he failed to turn up for morning appointments because he had been out on the tiles all night long. I am almost old enough to be his father, but I am not in the business of being his nanny. I am a professional researcher and that, in my mind, was what I was employed to do.”

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6 . RICHARD SUCHORZEWSKI

Richard came second to Nigel Farage in the 2006 UKIP leadership election. In October 2006 he circulated the following:-

Dear Colleague

It is with great sadness and after much consideration that I have today sent by e-Mail and Royal Mail to The Chairman of UKIP the following letter:

Dear Chairman

Please be good as to accept, and post on UKIP.org, this my letter of resignation from The UK Independence Party.

It was a privilege to be elected Chairman of UKIP Wales and work to represent the members in restructuring and introducing an organisational structure for growth. I would like to thank, for their invaluable assistance, John Bufton as Regional Organiser, and my hard working and supportive committee and members in Wales. I am pleased to have been able to help turn UKIP Wales around and put in place foundations for growth and success in the National Assembly Elections next May.

I was honoured to be elected by the membership to represent them at the NEC (National Executive Committee), where they believed I had specialist skills and experience to best represent their interests, to the benefit of UKIP and its primary cause.

When I stood for the leadership election I did so, on a ticket of Transparency, Integrity and Equality. These standards reflected my inner beliefs, as well as the moral, ethical and Christian principles upon which I have based my whole life. I knew there were sufficient problems with the Party, and also believed that the moral integrity of a number of people at the top left much to be desired.

It was my belief that should I be elected leader these problems could be resolved and the Party then could move forward together, on a firmer footing in probity and strength.

Nothing however prepared me for the scurrilous behaviour, defamatory comments, and downright dishonesty of some of Nigel Farage’s and David Bannerman’s staff, supporters and members of the Press Office staff, in which they clearly colluded.

I was accused of having associations with the BNP – even when these scoundrels knew that my grandfather was murdered by the Nazis in a concentration camp and my Great Grandfather was discovered hanged by them from a lamp post near his home by my 14 year old Father. Further I am angry that UKIP’s leadership were happy to collude in this base and obscene slur, particularly in the light of the fact that I have been ‘courting’ a young woman from St Lucia for the last 2 years, she herself has been victimised by racial abuse.

I was accused of being a homosexual, despite no evidence of this, and my having been happily married for 14 years, a marriage which sadly ended in an amicable divorce and now subsequently I am courting the above-mentioned lady.

I was accused of having ‘run up’ a company debt of £4millions in one of my businesses when these accusers knew that I had purchased the company with secured debts, that it had already accrued, amounting to £4millions of losses. My business is in the field of mergers and acquisitions, specialising in the purchase, development and sale of problematic companies. My critics in this area are either commercial illiterates or unarguably dishonest either of which reflects ill on the competence of the new leadership.

My local newspaper was contacted by an UKIP official and advised to look into these accusations – in order to attempt to taint my unblemished reputation.

Even friends within my own local Conservative Party have informed me that they were asked for ‘any dirt’ they had on me including my political, personal and business affairs.

This list shamefully goes on.

Despite all of this I was willing to forgive and forget. I called for Party unity behind the new leader Nigel Farage, regardless of how he had gained his new position. I hoped this would in some way result in a change of attitude.

Clearly it did NOT. Farage colluded with, and thus endorsed the scurrilous behaviour. He was not prepared for his staff to apologise for the BNP allegations as he felt that the issue ‘would go away’ – and he tried to justify the concern on the basis that a fellow NEC member David Abbott volunteered his support of my leadership candidacy. (David Abbott is the very man whom Farage and his secretary Douglas Denny introduced and actively supported to the NEC, and only turned against when he supported my candidacy).

Farage also claimed concern in that a Mr Andrew Edwards supported my leadership bid on an internet blog that he runs. I am to be tainted by this, even though I have never posted on his site, spoken to, nor communicated with the said person, who I am advised is NOT a member of UKIP.

Farage has also claimed that a long term associate of his, Greg Lance-Watkins is a supporter and associate of the BNP, of which I have seen no evidence – yet this seems to besmirch my reputation, as G.L-W. openly supported my candidacy, having stated, based on extensive personal dealings with Nigel Farage that “he was a good performer for UKIP but lacked either the probity or competence to lead UKIP.”

This logic that UKIP’s new leader has adopted if seriously applied, must call into question his own credentials, bearing in mind both his long-term association with G.L-W. and that the BNP actually refused to stand against Farage, and supported his candidacy at the Bromley by-election. Does this make Nigel a BNP supporter?

Rather then be magnanimous in victory and help the Party unite, Nigel and his clique overturned a perfectly legitimate democratic vote at the NEC which had elected Geoffrey Kingscott (a most honourable man) as Party Secretary, denying the Party of another person with integrity at the top, and placing his supporter the discredited Douglas Denny in the post.

A witch hunt has now commenced, seemingly with the aim to disingenuously massage MEP lists, with the disciplinary hearing of Peter Baker for daring to make public his committee’s majority voted opposition to Roger Knapman’s morally questionable exploitation and involvement in a Polish worker’s import business run by his son.

Similarly Dennis Brookes, a loyal and devoted supporter and Regional Organiser of UKIP, would seem to have been victimised for having the temerity not to object to his committee’s support of my candidacy, and this apparently has contributed to losing him his job. I have no doubt from Nigel’s discussion with me, subsequent to the election, that others too will suffer similar fates.

On policy issues, Nigel has made statements already, that makes it clear to me, we are to become a shadow alternative Tory Party. A pressure group created to persuade the Tories to dump Cameron and change its policy on the EU. I am sorry; I did not leave the real Tory party to join a poor imitation.

I believe UKIP was sincere in its endeavour to extricate Britain from the European Union, returning sovereignty to a British Parliament and playing a full independent part in that new Parliament.

On financial transparency issues, I believe a cloud still overhangs the Ashford call centre and various aspects of UKIP accounts. Also the financial dealings and involvement in fraud, (as exposed by the media), of Tom Wise, one of UKIP’s MEPs, have not adequately been resolved.

Likewise there has been a lack of transparency of others. I have contended that the funding mechanisms are too heavily reliant on the EU, as this makes us subservient to the very body from which we wish to disassociate and which we openly accuse of corruption particularly in the area of accounting!

I stood for leader knowing full well that it was a challenge I was unlikely to win. Farage had control of a number of advantages that if abused would guarantee him success. Knowing this, I was more than surprised that he allowed his cronies, supporters, and certain staff to openly and reprehensibly lie and rubbish a loyal UKIP member, with elected duties, who devoted the last 2 years of his life, full time, unpaid, to help UKIP progress.

Even now in ‘victory’ Farage appears determined not to change his ways, and because of this I cannot support this Party under his leadership any longer.

Reluctantly I am left with no honourable action open to me other than to leave, as I am not prepared to give my good name, reputation and integrity, in support of Farage and many in his clique. I therefore stand alongside the other Party devotees and former NEC members, Anthony Butcher, Gill Chant and others (not to mention the many other activists who have already resigned).

My heart and my grateful thanks go out to all of those who supported me and the values in which we believed, and those who have committed so much of their lives in their patriotic pursuit of regaining democracy, British Independence and Sovereignty.

It does not give me any satisfaction to realise that the old saying “Fish Rots from the Head Down” may have more than a cursory resemblance to UKIP.

Please be so good as to convey to the membership my very best wishes and thanks for allowing me to serve them! At the moment I feel honour bound to continue the struggle for liberation from the EU and better Governance outside of UKIP, but would be happy to reconsider my position should there be notable changes within UKIP in the future under very different leadership.

Yours sincerely
Richard Suchorzewski
UKIP Wales Chairman (resigned 5th October 2006)
NEC member (resigned 5th October 2006)

7. MARCUS STEAD

Marcus Stead posted a letter of resignation from UKIP on 24th November 2006. Below is a copy of his resignation letter in full which, at that time, was circulated to about 140 e-mail addresses.

To: Nigel Farage, Present UKIP leader, John Whittaker, UKIP Chairman, Michael Zuckerman, Party Secretary, Roger Knapman, former UKIP leader.

Dear Mr Farage,

I am writing to you to inform you of my resignation, with immediate effect, from the United Kingdom Independence Party, my position as an elected member of the UKIP Wales Committee and from my position as Vice-Chairman of the UKIP Cardiff and District Branch.

After many weeks of deliberating, I have come to the conclusion that UKIP has become a hindrance to Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. UKIP professes to be the flagship of Euro Sceptic pressure group in Britain (to describe it as a true political party, would I believe, be a gross misrepresentation). This places a serious responsibility upon the shoulders of the party, one it does not take seriously enough. From the perspective of a pro-European, UKIP have become ideal opponents, a party led by useful idiots and therefore being a joke opposition.

The fight to regain control of Britain’s sovereignty needs and deserves a serious political party with a mature core message, a clear strategy for getting that message across and must be led by political heavyweights. UKIP has failed on all these grounds. It cannot decide whether it is a political party or a pressure group, and as a result has not succeeded in being either. Your initial response during your short time as leader has been to treat UKIP as a Conservative Party splinter group, while still lacking any serious policies. If I had wanted to belong to the Conservative Party I would have joined it.

These frustrations on my part are nothing new, and judging by the rapid decline in membership since 2004, this is a view shared by a large number of others.

Yet my principal reason for resigning relates specifically to you, your controlling cabal and your unacceptable behaviour over recent months, most specifically, the series of events that began at the Exeter hustings of July 30th. Simon Muir, David Noakes, Richard Suchorzewski’s solicitor and others have seen and verified the validity of a letter signed by a bona fide member of UKIP clearly stating Annabelle Fuller introduced herself as a member of the Press Office and clearly showed herself to be an ‘intimate’ of yours. She solicited the conversation with a stranger and stated unequivocally that Richard Suchorzewski had lied about his background and CV and that he was a BNP supporter.

Your employee Mark Croucher also made similar accusations on a public internet forum. Mr Croucher’s twisted logic that Mr Suchorzewski’s alleged links to Greg Lance-Watkins somehow made him a BNP plant is bovine in the extreme. Mr Suchorzewski and Mr Lance-Watkins are more febrilely connected as allies with the BNP than you are through your well publicised and close association with Mark Deavin.

I have given you and your clique several opportunities to substantiate these serious accusations, yet all I received from you was an ill-mannered and abusive response on one occasion and no reply at all on others.

During the past eighteen months I have worked closely with Mr Suchorzewski, and have consistently found him to be a man of integrity and great talent who was willing to work long hours, and without pay, to help UKIP develop into a serious political force.

It appears that as soon as he became a threat to your control of the party you resorted to using the politics of the gutter to destroy him. The accusations you made against Mr Suchorzewski were especially absurd when one considers members of his family were killed in the Holocaust and he is in a stable relationship with a woman of Afro-Caribbean origin. Even I was surprised by how low you were prepared to sink to destroy him.

I concede you are a quite brilliant media performer, but I have come to the conclusion that this is where your talents begin and end. Your track record in all other areas has been truly shambolic. You have been convicted of misusing party funds. You have overseen a catastrophe at the Ashford Call Centre where just 15% of all money raised ever reached the party. Can you enlighten me and the many other concerned members as to which black hole the generous donations of ordinary members fell into?

And can you enlighten those of us on modest incomes just how much of your generous salary you have donated to the party? Or do you rely solely on us members and the naïve Alan Bown to fund ego-trips, such as your campaign in the Bromley by-election in which every vote you gained cost £86 in campaign money?

Since you became leader many decent people at every level of the party have resigned, and, after a period of reflection, I have decided to do likewise.

My own personal experience of you has taught me a lot about your character. On an occasion during the 2005 conference you personally assured me a Youth Movement would be set up in the near future. A long conversation, followed by a period of email correspondence with your Personal Assistant of the time, persuaded me you were serious about this, whereas in reality it was a ploy to turn me against the successful “Youthkip” movement set up by younger members of the Lechlade Group.

Then, in December of last year, the last time we met in person, you once again assured me that the launch of the Youth movement was “imminent” and likely to occur in February of this year. Your PA then refused to answer emails written by myself or any other younger members of the party who wanted this to be set up.

How is it possible to come to any conclusion other than that the only purpose of this exercise was to turn me against a then-thriving “Youthkip” Movement, favouring the “official” Youth movement which, in truth, you never had any intention of launching?

How can I have confidence in a leader who behaves in such a way?

Your short period as leader so far has fared little better. On day one of your leadership you referred to myself and others who have dared question you as, “A small number of malcontents”, thereby implying we were in some way trouble makers rather than people merely revealing the truth about you and your conduct. You then went on to attack those of us who subscribe to the “Democracy Forum” during your conference speech. It seems you simply dislike those who dare to question you or your conduct in any way.

It also seems you have learnt nothing from past mistakes when it comes to celebrity endorsements. You stupidly invited the mock shock jock James Whale to represent UKIP as the party’s London Mayoral election candidate. Mr Whale is clearly using this as a ploy to draw attention to himself and increase ratings for his radio show – he has no intention of joining UKIP or representing the party at any level, yet you have allowed him to use the party as a self publicity tool. Does this remind you of anyone?

Finally, I turn to the state of the party in Wales. Following the resignation of Mr Suchorzewski as UKIP Wales Chairman, John Pratt, a decent and honourable man, was elected to take his place.

While I hold Mr Pratt in high regard, the notion that he would make a good Chairman is frankly laughable. How can an elderly man, who has numerous commitments outside politics, as well as having no access to the internet and who admits to seldom watching television, possibly be a suitable Chairman?

I fear he will be used and manipulated by you and your controlling cabal as so many others have been, and then chewed up and spat out if he dares to challenge you in any way. I am therefore calling on him to resign from the post, and indeed as a member of the party, with his dignity and reputation in tact and find better uses of his time and resources to contribute to the campaign to get Britain back.

What remains of UKIP is a shipwreck of a party, consisting of a Dad’s Army of largely well meaning, patriotic, and generous people who have no idea about the corrupt nature of those at the top, such as yourself, Mark Croucher, Annabelle Fuller, Tom Wise and Douglas Denny to name a few. Indeed, with their track records, I would consider all of them suitable candidates to become European Commissioners. The way you are lining your pockets, you would be in good company in the current Commission.

I no longer wish to remain in this increasingly autocratic party, led by a corrupt leader who must be obeyed at all times

With your dreadful professional and personal record, you can be sure you will be found out soon enough, and I doubt it will be very long before you cause UKIP and yourself embarrassment in the press, killing off UKIP once and for all in the process.

I also wish to call upon many, many decent ordinary members I have had the privilege of knowing and working with to resign their party membership, as they are doing the euro-sceptic cause far more harm than good remaining in a party led by you and your cabal. I therefore call on all members to abandon this sinking ship led by a rogue Captain, and to confront head-on the tragic conflict of loyalties with which I have myself wrestled for perhaps too long.

To campaign to restore Britain’s sovereignty requires a serious political party led by people of integrity. Instead, we have a joke party led by a two-faced philandering drunk, who enjoys the wealth and trappings his role brings, yet in reality has contributed very little towards the goal of getting Britain out of the European Union and restoring British sovereignty.

Yours Sincerely,
Marcus Stead.
Vice Chairman, Cardiff & District Branch.
Wales Committee member with responsibility for Youth Development

Part four tomorrow.

UKIP: One Man's Sabotage of a Noble Cause. Part 2

ONE MAN’S SABOTAGE
OF A NOBLE CAUSE

Part Two

Part One can be seen by clicking here

Prepared by Derek Hunnikin
UKIP Membership No. 1428

2. BRYAN SMALLEY

At the time he retired from the navy Bryan Smalley was a submarine commander. A man of the highest integrity, Bryan joined UKIP, and was voted by the membership onto the National Executive Committee (NEC), and held the post of Party Secretary for two years. Clearly, as a commander of many men, Bryan had an above average ability to judge a person’s character and trustworthiness.

In a letter to Roger Knapman, Bryan Smalley wrote:

It is now obvious to all members who know what is happening at the top of the organisation that the Party has been taken over by Nigel Farage and his acolytes.

I am sure you have heard me say before that the Party belongs to its members. We elect some members to specific offices to run the Party for us. Even then, for those elected to the NEC, we only permit members to act in accordance with policies laid down by the committee and not to act independently. It is the failure to run the Party on these lines which is causing its disintegration.

My concern is that those people who are running the Party are unchecked and are behaving extremely irresponsibly. I will make some comments about these individuals which you may think libellous. I assure you I can bring evidence, and witnesses if necessary, to prove that everything I write can be proven.

Nigel Farage is a member of the NEC and has no authority to make individual decisions about the Party.

He is dishonest and frequently makes untrue statements.

He acts independently without consulting the NEC and in doing so frequently gets the Party a bad press.

You will recall that when I drew your attention to Nigel Farage’s illegal copying of video tapes and his lies about his activities, you gave him your full support and permitted the distribution of a press release which was also untruthful. You failed to support me when I was the only person telling the truth. I expect to see Nigel brought under control, by means of a disciplinary hearing if necessary.

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On 4th September 2000 Bryan circulated the following letter to members:

Dear

I am writing to a number of friends to explain why I have resigned as the Party Secretary and as a member of the NEC. My main purpose in resigning is because I cannot work within an organisation which doesn’t respect the law. The report (below) on the sale of ‘pirated’ videos explains what I mean. I am concerned that my view is not shared by Jeffrey Titford who says that I should accept Nigel for ‘what he wants to be for the Party.’ But there is more to this than meets the eye.

I had hoped that the new NEC would start again with a clean slate, but there are six or seven people on the NEC who are seeking to settle old scores or who have their own specific agendas. Unless these people unite they are not a threat in themselves. The most dangerous threat is Nigel Farage, because he has an organised band of followers who work as a group and which is seeking to control UKIP from outside the NEC. In pursuit of their aim they totally ignore the Party Secretary and his position, and they do their best to denigrate the effectiveness of the operations at the Head Office. This is one of the factors which has led to strain between the elected NEC and Nigel’s supporters.

I do not want to be concerned with fights between opposing groups within the Party. I have therefore decided to resign as Party Secretary and from the NEC. I shall continue to work within my constituency to promote the anti-EU cause.

UKIP will not survive if Nigel Farage is allowed to impose his dishonest and impetuous will on the Party. He is an excellent speaker. His activities should be confined to what he is good at.

Yours
Bryan Smalley

Commentary and timetable on the sale of ‘Pirate’ videos by Bryan Smalley - September 2000

24th May. NEC meeting at which Nigel Farage put forward a motion that any NEC member who fell foul of the law should have their legal expenses paid by the Party. Nigel couldn’t get majority support and lost his temper and stormed out of the meeting. I wondered why this was so important to Nigel.

At some time after this I learned that Nigel was going to copy and sell a video tape. I made enquiries and was told that the box which contained the video would be sold for £5 but the video inside it would be given away at no charge. I realised that this was an attempt to circumvent the law.

9th August. Mosaic issued its first warning to Nigel not to sell the videos. I was not aware of this at the time

21st August. I issued a memo saying I would have nothing to do with the sale of ‘pirated’ video tapes. N.B. I said nothing about the BBC holding the copyright.

24th August. Memo to me from Jeffrey (Titford) saying that Nigel had permission to sell the videos and that he (Jeffrey) had seen the letter giving approval.

24th August. Nigel repudiated the statements in my memo and says that the BBC do not hold the copyright. He admits that he has consulted the Leader (Jeffrey Titford) and the Chairman on the matter but not the Party Secretary who is the office holder responsible for legal matters. He fails to mention that Mosaic have told him that he has no right to sell the videos.

25th August. Mosaic wrote to Nigel again asking him to stop selling the videos and send all unsold videos to them. They report that the Trading Standards Department have become involved. I was not aware of this letter at the time.

Weekend of 26th/27th August. Nigel ‘phoned me and told me that a Trading Standards Officer had visited the Redhill Office (a UKIP office at that time) and bought a video under the pretence that he was a member of the Southampton Branch. The conversation then became difficult to interpret. I got the impression that Nigel was suggesting that I had spoken to the Trading Standards Department. He told me that he had consulted Richard North and Christopher Booker who assured him that he had nothing to worry about. He asked me whether I was trying to get him to resign from the Party.

30th August. Mosaic wrote to me, the Party Secretary, with copies of all previous correspondence. I then became aware that Nigel had been in conflict with Mosaic since 9th August. They also spoke to Nikki Sinclaire as I was not available that day.

1st September. Mosaic sent a Fax to Nikki Sinclaire giving further information. They said that they had never given Nigel permission to duplicate and sell copies of the film. This means that no letter giving approval exists. They also said that they were aware that Nigel’s aim was ‘to create a scene with the BBC’.

2nd September. Nigel ‘phoned me and said that the Trading Standards Officer had visited the Redhill Office on Friday 1st September and found a number of videos that had not been sent to Mosaic as instructed.

Signed by Bryan Smalley

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3. WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH

Printed and published by Chris Cooke – UKIP West Midlands Regional Office.

Dear Friends

UKIP CONDEMNED TO THE FAR RIGHT

Now a new Party Leader has been elected. Jeffrey Titford won by 15 votes, the narrowest of margins, from Rodney Atkinson (who we felt would at least have given UKIP a fighting chance). We are convinced that this election result condemns UKIP to the far right. Mr Titford was supported by Nigel Farage. Nigel Farage may have a strident speaking style, which UKIP’s more aggressive members seem to admire, but his actions politically have been disastrous for UKIP. He has been instrumental in deposing UKIP’s past leaders and attacks potential leaders. As UKIP Party Chairman, his inaction and poor judgement allowed the extended leadership crisis, a lack of proper party procedures, bad decision making, a continuing lethargy within UKIP, and botched attempts at high level defections to UKIP.

While Mr Farage holds important positions within UKIP his well publicised links to the British National Party will keep sabotaging the efforts of other UKIP members.

Mr. Titford and other prominent UKIP members had been members of the far right New Britain Party. One of these, Mike Natrass, has now been offered the post of UKIP Party Chairman. It matters not whether they were naive or otherwise in past associations – only that they persist in defending these associations. In doing so they give ammunition to UKIP’s political opponents, damaging UKIP credibility. Their intentions are made clear by their abject failure to offer Rodney Atkinson any position at all, despite powerful support from half of UKIP members.

SO WE MUST GO

How difficult is it for us to tell you that we, the undersigned, are leaving the UK Independence Party. We tried. From the start we knew that UKIP had “teething troubles”. But we did not understand just how deeply entrenched and corrupting those troubles were. We “fought from within” but were undermined by undemocratic “in-fighting”. From our respective positions within UKIP we did constant battle to ensure fair play for all members, prevent extremism, give UKIP sensible policies and provide the honesty and integrity sadly lacking in much of politics today.

For our troubles many of us have been insulted, harassed, libelled, intimidated or otherwise abused by some rather unsavoury people. We wonder why such people are in UKIP and what they are really after.

UNDERMINING UKIP SUCCESS

After the 1999 EU elections, at the very time when UKIP should have capitalised on its successes, when members up and down the country were aching to get on with recruitment, UKIP had no national recruitment leaflets, no newsletter was put out to members, and nothing was done. Perhaps more could have been done if the Party Chairman, Treasurer, and Secretary, had been less concerned with trying to depose the Party Leader.

In his short term of office party leader, Michael Holmes, successfully led UKIP into a doubling of its party membership and into winning three seats in the 1999 European Elections. Yet he has been hounded out of office by what seemed to be a conspiracy of members, mostly from London or the South East. Their defiance of the wishes of ordinary members (as expressed overwhelmingly at the Birmingham Conference and in a postal poll), and their outrageous attacks and vindictive behaviour has shocked many of us.

Even now they continue to harass Michael Holmes by attempting to divert his phone and mail and freeze his bank accounts. Michael is currently in hospital having suffered a mild stroke. Doctors attribute much of the cause to stress in dealing with his UKIP assailants.

We send him our good wishes and hope that he makes a speedy recovery.

STRANGE BEHAVIOUR AT LONDON HQ

Also infuriating to UKIP members was the ludicrous state of UKIP’s Head Office. The membership database was never correct. During the NEC elections some fifty members were ‘lost’ from the West Midlands alone. Despite strenuous efforts many of these people did not receive their voting papers until it was too late. One of the main workers inside the London HQ caused commotion and scuffles at the Birmingham Conference where he had to be restrained from molesting a young, coloured catering manager in a complaint about service. For that alone he should have been expelled from the party. Instead he continues in the London HQ. He and other London HQ workers vehemently denigrate the previous party leader – and made sure UKIP HQ was used to spread their message!

ACCOUNTABLE TO WHOM?

A cause for concern is that UKIP, with Craig Mackinlay acting as Treasurer, never produced properly audited accounts. Members’ money has been spent, although on what it is not always easy to see. UKIP now has very little of its own money and is effectively “bought” by a handful of people. Far from fighting for UK Independence it can’t even maintain the independence of its own organisation.

UKIP LINKS TO EXTREMISTS

Attempts to subvert internal UKIP elections (incidentally the UKIP returning officer, George Franklin-Ryan, has been receiving payments from Nigel Farage since last October – something members should have been told about), wanton disregard for the UKIP constitution or rules (as demonstrated in the case of the wrongful disqualification of a newly elected N.E.C. representative, Janet Girsman), continuing and clear evidence of UKIP links to extremist groups and individuals, are just some of the things that convince us that UKIP is no longer viable, nor is it proper to give it more of our time, effort or money.

Members should know of the dangers of their addresses falling into the hands of extremists. Rodney Atkinson’s recent circular refers members to Mr Farage’s links to an outsider. This person is a non-member who supports extremist groups. He obtained and used a stolen copy of UKIP’s membership database to try to ruin Rodney Atkinson’s leadership bid.

PUPPET ON WHOSE STRING?

Perhaps even more disturbing than Nigel Farage’s influence over Jeffrey Titford is the svengali-like power Tony Bennett (the person Mr Titford employs as a political assistant) seems to hold over him. Tony Bennett is responsible for the most vicious, and by far the most relentless, attacks on party members. Particularly nasty were his attacks on the last Party Leader, which continue despite an NEC request for him to refrain. Even now Mr Titford seems to do nothing about him. We believe that Jeffrey Titford, as UKIP leader, will be only a marionette dancing to the tune of his political puppet-masters.

UKIP NOW A BARRIER TO SUCCESS

When UKIP was formed it was helped enormously by being sucked into a political vacuum where no other moderate political party offered the honest policy of withdrawal from the EU. Now we fear that UKIP, through its tarnished reputation, bad organisation and structure, has become a liability in the fight for withdrawal from the EU. It cannot succeed and yet UKIP will act as a barrier to a more reasonable political force emerging. This is appalling for its members (most of whom are genuinely moderate and reasonable people) and for our country.

UKIP MEMBERS DESERVE BETTER

Nothing is gained by continuing to work in such a disabled party. UKIP has given us experience and good friends. We are grateful for that. UKIP members are undoubtedly the best of any political party. Their energy, imagination and commitment has done much to turn the tide of public opinion in Britain even if their election efforts continue to be sabotaged. They deserved better.

Other party members will also soon decide if UKIP’s disease is no longer worth the fight. But staying with UKIP tars us with an extremist brush. We must move on – many of us to work in other organisations with similar aims.

OUTSIDE INFUENCES

It may be – as some suggest – that UKIP was never meant to succeed; it may have been set up as some sort of “sponge” organisation – to soak up opposition to the EU in Britain without allowing it to become an effective force. There is ample evidence to suggest agents provocateurs have been active in UKIP stirring up trouble as the opportunity arises. Without doubt extremists have infiltrated. UKIP structures are incapable of preventing such things (i.e. there has never been a Party Rule book!).

FUTURE SUCCESS

As the door to UKIP closes windows of opportunity will surely come our way. Whether we work within other already established groups or set up a new one (as 1997 UKIP National Agent, Cam Poulter, has done with Reform) we are determined that where UKIP has failed us others must succeed. We have had enough and leave with but few regrets – and much hope for the future.

SIGNED

Rodney Atkinson UKIP NEC Member. 2nd in UKIP leadership election – 2000. Lead UKIP candidate & UKIP Election Campaign Committee – 1999.
Peter Davies Hemsworth (1997) & South Yorkshire (1998) - By Elections candidate.
Carolyn & Michael Holmes UKIP Party Leader 1998 – 2000. UKIP MEP (South West).
Christina Speight Editor: Facts, Figures and Phantasies. Former Chairman Ealing. Cam Poulter Who was Acting Party Chairman in 1996/97
Ashley Banks General Election candidate Battersea 1997. EU Election - Eastern Region 1999.
Ron Dickinson NEC ’95-’97. Former Salisbury Office Administrator. Political Assistant to M. Holmes (MEP).
Bruce King Former Organiser UKIP Devon.
Simon Stoker UKIP Independence News Editor, Website, Derbyshire.
Don Briggs Chairman: Tatton (UKIP NW).
Barrie Draper Founder Organiser for UKIP National & Devon.
Robin Lamming Hull & East Yorkshire Committee.
Mike Carter Former Regional Organiser Cornwall. Chairman Falmouth Cambourne
Janet Girsman UKIP NEC member. Former UKIP National Media Adviser. Eastern. Jose O’Ware General & EU election candidate (London).
Chris Cooke UKIP NEC member. National Conference Organiser. Founder – Truth about Europe Campaign.
Harold Green Chairman: Epsom & Ewell.
Lynn Riley Secretary – British Housewives League.

And more than 200 other UKIP members who want to be associated with this statement.

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4. ANTHONY SCHOLEFIELD

A founder member, and Party Secretary for three years, wrote:

Nigel Farage is a reasonably competent and hard working salesman, but he is also the alpha and omega of UKIP’s problems because of his widespread manipulation, poor judgement, and poor choice of associates. His manipulative political style suffocates development of Party structures and policy development and drives away many activists. His judgement of personalities and staff is notoriously poor and appears to be based solely on their sycophancy. He is the exemplar for, and the inspiration for, the MEP problem, their self-centredness and lack of subordination to the Party members.

Apparently the membership of UKIP is estimated to be less than 12,000, including those signed up to long term membership and unable to get out. The party lacks cash although the MEPs are well remunerated and many don’t contribute financially to the Party. Press reports of widespread alcoholic consumption, and Farage’s sexual misadventures, steadily drove away supporters who back the Party with their sacrifices of time and money. Many will not abide this abuse of Party support.

A disturbing new feature is the revelation that Mark Croucher, the UKIP Press Officer, shows details about UKIP’s membership to Communist and Socialist Workers via Searchlight and ‘Unite Against Fascism’. Croucher reports to Farage.

Note from DH: From time to time, Anthony Scholefield writes excellent articles published in eurofacts.

Part Three tommorrow.