UKIP Uncovered

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

Friday, October 24, 2003

Christina Speight's EGM Speech

Even those attending the 22nd January 2000 meeting would not have heard this speech as the microphone was cut off mid-way through. This now proven to be illegal EGM, contrived by a sacked/rump NEC, led to a rigged election and propelled to power the corrupt cabal that runs UKIP to this very day:

"We are all here today at vast and totally unnecessary expense for one reason only and that reason is that there are people in this party who have refused to recognise the decisions made by ordinary members meeting in the legal supreme body of the party - the AGM. They were condemned by an overwhelming vote of members but have acted as if nothing had happened, and have held the whole party to ransom. They have hindered political action and given comfort to our enemies. They have damaged our finances and have brought dissension between members who previously worked in harmony together. They are the ones who have denied postal or proxy votes for members who are ill, the elderly and those far from London - shame on them!

I have had a number of members call me almost in tears saying they have worked their guts out for the party but are too old to get here today. I also have here in my signed requests from 15 of the members in my branch asking me to cast a proxy vote for them or at least speak for them. That's a total of over 20 votes all backing Michael Holmes who Scholefield has barred from voting. He said about proxy voting 'I do not find any enthusiasm for it'. Who did he ask??

But the motion on which I speak is the most fundamental one today. You are being asked to censure our Leader. However, we also elect a Leader and in 1998 we elected Michael Holmes for 4 years . He is thus the only person in the entire national party properly in office as anything at all! Now we have the ridiculous situation where if we censure him and an election takes place the party will not exist at all! The Media would laugh themselves silly at our expense! As yet there are no signs of anyone else putting themselves forward as leader so could we really be so daft as to vote today for 'AN Other' to lead the party.

Next you should consider the question of the honour - an old fashioned word - of the Party. We have a constitution. Nine people have defied that constitution. We cannot also in this hall defy the constitution ourselves by repudiating the decisions of the AGM because a conspiring few did not like them. That would be dishonourable. However, since accusations will undoubtedly fly, it is also important to look at the record of those who accuse Michael Holmes as well as the charges they level at him.

Firstly, of what does he stand accused that would warrant destroying the party? There is nothing remotely disreputable charged against him; most of the accusations rest on a vague assertion that he is difficult to work with! As anyone who knows our leader is aware, he is a blunt but patriotic person who has been under a concerted attack inside the NEC since the day he was elected, and elected to the fury of the other main candidate and his supporters.

Michael has just won a significant legal battle with the Home Office, at his own expense, on behalf of the party over the shameful way we were treated by the Home Office in publicity for the European Elections. He has won leave to bring this case in front of the courts and The Home Office has a week to enter a defence . What is important about this is that the NEC and Tony Scholefield delayed taking action during the elections themselves when a victory for us in the courts could have affected the outcome. So, Michael's done it on his own.

Michael has recruited to the party people of substance around the country and personally brought to our ranks many of the Referendum Party's most prominent candidates. There is incidentally a real danger (an example of which is our most prominent backer whose letter many of you have seen) that the major contributors to our party will withdraw their support if Michael Holmes is not strongly backed. (I personally know of large donations which would be lost).

One of Michael's main detractors is Nigel Farage, the party chairman, whom Michael himself appointed and who in front of the AGM publicly and emotionally declared that he would agree to be chairman saying 'If Michael will have me, I will back him' But without having first had the decency to resign as chairman he has launched a public attack on his own Leader. How dishonourable can you get? This man also told one of the members, here today, that 'of course we all know that (so-and-so from the NEC) was in weekly contact with Alan Sked. This same chairman has consistently sat on the fence and seriously delayed the settlement of all these troubles by devious tactics and thus caused the matter to drag on.. The chairman may be an excellent speaker but after this, it is hard to trust his judgment or indeed himself. Another point the same man makes is that you cannot be an MEP and an Officer in the Party. Well, that may be true if you are also as Nigel is, trying to run a business too. But Michael has sold his business and devotes all his time to the party. Others to attack Michael Holmes include a man who is employed in a party position and paid with funds derived from the EU itself, as assistant to one of our MEPs and uses that position to attack his own Leader, not just inside the party but in the courts as well.

No, Michael Holmes has ploughed a lonely furrow with backing only from a few stalwarts on the NEC but opposed and frustrated in everything he tried to do by the implacable hostility of the *Nine* dissidents on the NEC. A less committed man would have thrown in the towel long ago. Why has he not? Because he knew that he had the backing of the vast majority of ordinary members in both the AGM vote and 87% - no less! - in the unofficial ballot. That man is not a quitter and this meeting should solidly back him too.

Remember that in any case, were this meeting itself to be so dishonourable as to censure the Leader, he is unlikely to wish to stand again and he and all our prominent backers would almost certainly be lost. Many would seriously consider if they could be bothered to work further for a party so dishonourable."

Unquote.

posted by Martin |8:32 AM