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Wednesday, 31 August 2011

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:


I am a member of UKIP’s NEC, elected and re-elected by the members of UKIP.

On both occasions I had stood for election on a platform of transparency, democracy and probity.


Other candidates have been elected on similar platforms in the past, but the emotional toll of the ridicule and abuse from the party leadership has resulted in most of the good people resigning.

Resignations since I have been on the NEC include Anthony Butcher, Linda Guest, Gill Chant, Richard Suchorzewski, and Bryan McCormack.

The result is that there were, until yesterday, only three members of the NEC who had any backbone. Eric Edmond, Del Young, and me. The rest are, for the most part, just nodding donkeys who never disagree with the leader and never vote other than how he wants.

Now Del is the only member with any courage who remains, and it will be lonely for him with no-one to second motions or give moral support.

The circumstances of the removal of Eric and me are as follows. There were complaints on the agenda against both of us. In my case Rachel Oxley had made the complaint that I had circulated a letter calling for the rules of the party to be adhered to.

The item was added to the agenda less than two days before the meeting, and was not drawn to my attention by the secretary or anyone else in the leadership cabal. It was another attempted ambush.

However, her complaint, made under section 7.18.1 of the UKIP constitution was not valid and I had prepared a statement, which I planned to read to the NEC

However, I never did present my case as events took a strange turn. In addition to efforts to get rid of Eric Edmond and me, the leader had also asked for the resignation of Martin Haslam, the deputy treasurer.

Martin is a gentle, honest and very generous man. He has restored our faith in the accounts, at least in the current ones. The leader’s beef was that Martin had taken a phone call from a reporter and had not reported it to Farage. By chance the phone call had come just as Martin had finished a game of tennis with Buster Mottram, who had overheard the conversation and could vouch for what had been said. Martin felt very aggrieved at his dismissal and had come to the NEC with the encouragement of several members, not just the three stalwarts, but also some of the nodding donkeys too. At first he was denied permission to speak but eventually he made a moving speech, reminding the leader how much he had contributed in time and money to the party, he had paid for Nigel’s driver, paid the salary of Marta Andreasen (£30,000 per annum), paid for a fund raising dinner at the House of Lords, and done the SE accounts as well as the national ones, etc.

Farage belittled his contributions and did not once say thank you.

Then came the appalling statement from Farage that he had KNOWN the day before that the reporter was going to phone. But INSTEAD of alerting his colleague he had waited to see if the call would be reported to him. It was a trap.

This sneaky, untrusting treatment of a kind, honest man so incensed me that I left the meeting. I could not sit at the same table as a man who demanded trust but could not trust others, who did not recognize as valuable anyone who didn’t totally agree with him on every single issue.

These new revelations were on top of all his more obvious defects including total amorality, bullying, adultery, and drunkenness, vengefulness and lying. I did not resign from the NEC, but when I got back from the meeting I found that the complaint against me had been upheld.

I enclose the statement I had intended to make to the NEC. (See below).

Bannerman’s complaint (an EU employee's complaint) about Eric had also been upheld. We have both apparently been fired from the NEC. I want to make it clear that our firing had nothing to do with Buster Mottram’s idea of a pact with the BNP, which neither of us endorsed or supported and which I spoke against.

We were each fired as a result of baseless complaints by other NEC members, one of whom was in the pay of the EU. Neither of us presented our defence. In my case I was not given adequate notice and the complaint was patently not valid in any case.

Keeping to the rules (prepared statement for the NEC) by David Abbott NEC - NOV 3rd 2008

All of us sitting here today agree that you can’t have an effective organisation without rules and procedures … that are fair and followed. Rachel accuses me of breaking the rules .. because I distributed a piece asking that our party rules and constitution be adhered to … including observing normal British conventions of fairness.

We may find it telling that she and the chairman are now attempting one of the NEC’s signature Ambushes … by only giving me one day’s notice of the complaint. Our constitution does not forbid NEC members from commenting on the leadership. My comments were not an attack on the party, but a plea to keep to our own rules. Let me remind you of the circumstances that led me to write the letter.

By refunding the fees paid by two of the candidates, the party has already admitted that rules were broken in the MEP selection process. The returning officer‘s report says that rules were changed in mid game … which was one of the observations I had made. He seems to recommend re-running the entire election process in London … because of all the rule breaches.

Our rules do not permit a foreigner (Marta Andreasen) living abroad to be a member of the party, … let alone become the treasurer, or an MEP candidate. The preferment of an Argentinean Dane who lives in Barcelona … and who has told this committee that she does not share UKIP’s core goals is against the spirit and the rules; and is causing much disturbance in the SE.

The lead candidate in the East works for the EU … and thus his terms of employment include that he shall conduct himself solely with the interest of the EU in mind … and shall not take instructions from any organisation or person outside the EU. He is thus not eligible to be on this committee … especially not as deputy leader and certainly he cannot be an MEP candidate.

The fact that he is repeatedly introduced as the relative of a famous man (which claim proves to be completely false), is the icing on the cake …. I would like to know who it was in our organization that checked his credentials and identity as required by a resolution of this committee.

Our press officer loses a computer … with confidential data on it … and somehow someone in Morocco puts up a video of another East Region candidate .. on U tube. And the party didn’t even apologise. In fact our leader seems to sympathise with this woman in a newspaper article rather than with the wronged candidate. The candidate is now suing ….. More trouble because we haven’t kept normal standards of decency.

The constitution says that the chairman is appointed by this committee …. but the membership was told of the appointment of our new chairman before the NEC had even met him, let alone discussed his appointment.

Our leader issues an edict … that MEPs’ wives must not be on the MEP’s payroll … then he is caught paying his own wife. And this committee says and does nothing.

Del (Young), the founder and energetic leader of Young Independence, was ambushed without notice. Eric is similarly pounced on without the notice required by common decency.

The man who was our treasurer at the time knowingly accepted illegal donations …. .landing our party in trouble with Elcom. Alan is kindly picking up the tab .. but this money could have been spent on the cause if we had just kept to the rules in the first place. Rules and conventions are broken time and time again. This lack of attention to rules and procedure is only one aspect of the shambles of a leadership that we now suffer …. but it is an aspect that this committee can and should deal with, if our party is to survive … let alone succeed in its noble goals.

And that is the reason I wrote the letter.

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For your information, here is the letter that caused the NEC Cabal to launch its attack on Dr David Abbott.

Begins:

"Several times we have been proud to point out that the British invented most of the world’s popular games and sports. This happened because we Brits understood the importance of rules. Rules have to be fair, agreed and understood ahead of time, and obeyed. If the rules are broken there are penalties. The rules are not to be ignored or changed in the middle of the game. The umpire or referee has to be unbiased. This is the British way, and it has worked for centuries.

Without rules that are understood and willingly obeyed there is chaos. And chaos is what is engulfing UKIP at the present time.

Where there are UKIP rules they are ignored if it suits the leadership. Often there are no rules and no rule book. The constitution goes missing. Minutes are not kept. Some rules are selectively applied so as only to affect the favoured few.

These problems are sapping the very life out of the party.

A recent manifestation was the MEP lists. I voted for the rules governing the conduct of the selections process because a man, who had been my hero until that time, was going to be the trusted umpire and would ensure that the rules were fairly applied. This has not proved to be the case. It seems that close contact with the party leadership can turn even a principled man into a shyster.

Until our party leadership adopts again the ethics of its members, which is to say British habits of keeping to the rules, fair play and honesty, it is hard to envision any future.

And I mean a future for our country as well as our party. All those leaflets we delivered, all the time and money we have contributed appear to have been dissipated in the fleshpots of Brussels, as our leaders have learnt the nasty and cheating ways that are the norm in parts of Europe.

Please insist that your elected NEC members vote with their consciences and do not succumb to the continuing pressure that legitimises cheating and rule bending ."



Part Five tommorrow.


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