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


Saturday, August 09, 2003 

The Yorkshire and NE Complaint Re-visited 2

The story so far as read between the lines : The European Election Committee (or its Chairman) decided it would impose its own candidates on the Yorkshie & Humberside and North East Regions for the June 2004 EP elections, regardless of local opposition and the vigorous resistance mounted (to the provisions that would allow this) within earlier EEC committee meetings by Michael Cassidy and Michael Rollings, Secretary and Chairman respectively of those two Regional Committees. This led to the Chairman of the EEC illegally supending the two Regional Committees in the form of a Solicitor's letter to their officers.

The next five paragraphs of the complaint lodged by Michael Cassidy relate to the immediately following actions of the NEC

3. The NEC did not overrule the EEC even though the NEC knew that its subcommittee was exceeding its authority and acting in breach of its own rules, as set out above.

4. The NEC conducted an emergency meeting on the 21 March 2003 which was not properly constituted. The notice given was less than 24 hours and there was no motion contained in the notice, contrary to paragraph 7.14 of the constitution. The unconstitutional meeting was proceeded with in preference to a properly constituted one planned for the 24 March.

5. The NEC has set up shop as the Discipline Panel and arbitrarily disbanded 2 regional committees with no good cause and without giving those committees any opportunity to answer the allegations being made against them. This is contrary to natural justice, the Human Rights Act, democratic common sense, and paragraph 1.1 of the discipline rules of the Party Rule Book paragraph 17 below). The NEC acted no better than the EEC and should have abided by the appeals procedure which the EEC had agreed upon (paragraph 1 above). In arbitrarily disbanding the NE and Yorkshire regional committees, the NECwas acting out of all proportion and in a manner likely to increase discord. Disciplinary matters are the preserve of the Discipline Panel as set out in paragraph 15.1 of the constitution.

6. The NEC has purportedly disbanded the NE and Yorkshire regional committees purely as a means of replacing democratically elected committees with committees composed of the chums and favourites of the leadership.This act of bad faith is an abuse of paragraph 1.3 of the regional committee rules and of NEC power in general.

7. The NEC has purportedly disbanded the NE and Yorkshire regional committees on the pretext that they had not signed a form, when the NEC had never resolved that those committees should sign such a form, and when the form or its non-signature did not disclose any grounds for disbanding those committees at all.


Paragraph 3 is as clear as a pikestaff and it is beyond this commentator's ability to understand how anybody, reading the rules which were quoted in our earlier post Complaint Re-visited 1, could possibly argue otherwise.

Paragraph 4 makes the case that the notice for the 21st March meeting was unconstitutional as "The notice given was less than 24 hours and there was no motion contained in the notice, contrary to paragraph 7.14 of the constitution." Neither of these very clear points were addressed by Denis Brookes, the acting panel chairman, when he rejected the complaint. I would like to see the reasons why Brookes and the other panel members feel that this notice was constitutional. Rumours are circulating that one of the five signatories to the notice calling for the emergency meeting of 21st March, was the Party Treasurer who is supposedly an-officio member of the NEC. We presume Denis Brookes and his panel checked to ensure this was NOT the case!

The NEC is badly split, that much is clear. On a later post we will look further into the make-up and track record of that Committee and those who have been elected to it, as it is increasingly clear that the outcome of the clash in that caucus will be a hugely relevant factor in the future progress of the anti-EU cause in Britain.

posted by Martin |1:15 PM
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