UKIP Uncovered

UKIP Uncovered
What motivates the leaders of the United Kingdom Independence Party?

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Michael Harvey responds

In accordance with our commitment to openness and free speech we reproduce below the full, complete and unedited reply posted by Michael Harvey to our first post of today which was kindly reproduced on the e-mail discussion group eurofaq from where this response was also obtained.

Mr Cole's sad attempts to "uncover" UKIP are becoming even more threadbare than yours, -------. All candidates were invited to attend the count, and those that did, along with representatives of several of the regional committees, were completely satisfied with the conduct of the election. By this time, of course, Mr Cole had long since been disqualified, which may explain his sour grapes.

No-one other than Mr Cole has expressed any concern about the fairness of the election process. He cannot even come up with any specific allegation, relying instead on innuendo and weasel words. For instance, to imply that there is something suspicious in using a commercial box number for ballot papers is plain silly. If ballot papers had been returned direct to Head Office, he might have had a valid point...

It is important that the integrity of any election process is not in doubt, so I am happy to answer any questions on- or off-list (other than from the usual anti-UKIP time-wasters).

Regards,
Michael

Two points are immediately clear:-

1. The main objective in securing the integrity of a secret ballot is ensuring the non-interference at any stage with the ballot box or whatever other recptacle is used for the receipt of the ballot papers. If this is an accomodation address with an outside company how can that integrity have possibly been maintained. Jimmy Carter and the entire membership of the Electoral Reform Society could have witnessed the arrival of the ballots at UKIP Head Office, the fact that they were delivered from a third party unsupervised commercial mail handling operator raised my suspicions when the point was made to me by a party member.

2. Michael Harvey still does not get it, and by now, therefore I guess he never will. Martin Cole resigned his candidature by public announcement to one of the leading daily newspapers in the North East region where he was standing as a candidate with the following statement:-

"The latest relevations of the party's connections with the BNP, and unpaid membership cards descending from the blue, have led me to announce that I will be unwilling to continue my UKIP MEP candidacy without a complete change of the leadership of the party."

How could Cole have continued to pursue his candidacy having made such a statement. Had he tried to continue he would have quickly become a laughing stock at the very outset of the campaign. Had General Secretary Harvey have used his noddle for once and kept a low profile, Martin Cole who apparently always presented a threat to the preferred candidates of the ruling cabal (hence the strange manipulations to keep Cole from the South West regional list) would have quietly disappeared from the scene. After all even he could not have envisioned a 'complete change of UKIP leadership' ahead of the postal ballots. (As then NEC member Mike Nattrass is said to have remarked - he would have needed to have lost his marbles to believe in such a possibility).

As he resigned of his own free will HOW COULD HIS PRESENT ACTIVITIES BE ASCRIBED TO SOUR GRAPES?

No it was Harvey's and Lott's complete mishandling of the matter, by then disqualifying an already stood-down candidate, that highlighted their incompetence and directly led to the exposure of all the other irregularities.

That quick reaction to Michael Harvey's reply must suffice for the moment. As a source that is no doubt considered anti-UKIP and time-wasting, it is probably an even greater waste of our own time listing all the numerous outstanding queries that have been put to the General Secretary over the past few months. As we will, however, be assembling and collating these various postings for incorporation into Michael Harvey's own section of the side panel (as promised earlier today, when other matters seemed less pressing), we will summarise, repeat and list such earlier queries on this blog later. Hopefully any pro-UKIP non-time-wasting party members, among our readership, can then relay our questions direct to their General Secretary. No doubt to be ignored as is usual along with all those others down the months and not least those of yesterday and the day before, put direct to the still Party Chairman David Lott.

posted by Martin |12:35 PM