UKIP Uncovered

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

Friday, December 19, 2003

On Open Debate

Confronted by a UKIP member regarding his communications to UKIP Branch Chairmen receiving broader circulation, Damian Hockney, has issued this challenging defence:-

Quote

The only people who have actually carried this debate into the public forum are the leadership, who posted comments about it on the public website two or three days ago - you can still see them. And Mike Nattrass whose Joe Maplin style wild comments in capital letters and exclamation marks are a source of constant amazement among his NEC colleagues.

The only thing I have ever done is to inform just the branch chairmen and the euro elections candidates. My comments have been sent only to them...if the argument is to be that we must suppress all information of law-breaking by the leadership simply on the chance that one of our senior 200 people may just possibly mention it to someone outside the party then there is something wrong somewhere...particularly with the argument and the logic.

The idea that we must conceal everything from all our own people is a mistake for one very big reason. In a climate of secrecy and concealment flourishes corruption, even of a minor nature. Without the daylight, it is easy for those who earn money out of our cause or have an agenda related to their own personal earnings to attempt to prevent others from doing things which might expose them. Take Greg Lance Watkins. We all know he was paid
2,000 pounds and handed the party mailing list by some of the same people who have now spirited away the party records, in order to smear a leadership contender a few years back. London Region have demanded that the party leadership disociated themselves from this man. Past attempts by the NEC to achieve this have failed. Take others - have you not noticed that most of the public attacks have come from people who earn money out of the party?

These people are now being used to start discipline campaigns against anyone who even mildly and privately questions the leadership.

So if my telling the senior 200 in the party is "inexcusable", what is the description for the leadership's actions of spreading muck on the party website and briefing GL-W to attack party members in public?

And in spite of all the lame protestations by the proprietors of Knapman and Clark Removals Inc that they are 'furious' that some e-mail comments of mine have been found on the BNP website... Well, what do they say now when the BNP lifts wholesale the leadership's own comments from our own website to say that "UKIP is in disarray etc etc". In truth, it is the lowest of tricks - saying that certain people should be censored from talking internally
because the comments might be used against us if passed on, but then taking every opportunity themselves publicly through Greg Lance-Watkins and the party's own website to spread what Richard North described as Farage's Law...if you don't jump when I say jump then you are an enemy.

The party is too important for all this type of Wild West or pre-war East European style politics. I am certainly not putting up with it and I say it frankly. If no-one says anything, things will suddenly break out later at a much more inconvenient stage. We have time to resolve this all now. We will not if it all comes to the surface in April.

Yes Simon is right that we must get on with the main event and stop the sideshows. But even as I write this, the leadership has been using poor saps to call others on the NEC and try an illegal coup by attempting to remove anyone from the NEC who disagrees with them. Happily, enough members of the NEC have now told them to stop it at once. Simon, try telling the leadership to stop the infighting which they have started.

If you know an NEC member, ask him whether he has been asked to try and support a way of illegally disbarring members of the NEC on these grounds in the last few days. Perhaps ask Tony Stone who has been making some of the calls. Basically a decent man, he doesn't like the way I deal with the leadership head-on in meetings over what I regard as corruption, deceit and double dealing. I appreciate his feelings and accept that my frankness is not everyone's cup of tea, but I will not simply accept the continued damage
being done to our cause. Appeasement got us knowhere 60 years ago, and Churchill taught us how to deal with those of a dictatorial tendency.

Again, all I am doing is responding and telling senior members of what is going on. I sit in amazement while this Wild West behaviour is inflicted on the party. As an NEC member, I have not been the instigator of any one of these illegal actions and have illegally been told after the event on many of them. I cannot sit by and watch, as there are very important consequences to the damage being inflicted by the leadership on this party. I do not make
up that the party leadership illegally sacked the Party Treasurer and that I had to spend my own money rescuing the daft buggers from their own mess. I do not make up that Nigel conspired with Derek Clark to secretly put a member of his own staff onto a dscipline panel to get rid of someone from the party who had pointed out the corruption of Peter Troy in the North East (now parachuted into Scotland after an intense leadership lobbying
campaign). Once the private avenues have failed, and heaven knows I have tried them all, do I just sit back and allow the party to be taken over by this type of Wild West behaviour?

No, I want to reform it from within. I accept everyone's caveats about the need for unity for the euro elections campaign. But the leadership itself needs to take that message on board as it now begins another round of sackings and false discipline actions. The leadership could call a halt now by declaring that it will stop breaking the law, stop all the infighting
which it has instigated, and stop the latest attempts at a coup.

Everyone has the right not to read the facts, and everyone has the right to say "I want to hear no more". Out of the 200 senior people, 4 have said "No more", over 60 have written strongly supportive messages to me, a further 20-ish have written "supportive with caveats" messages, and a half dozen have said "disagree with you totally" but have not asked me to stop keeping them informed.

The only real response to me from the leadership, which appears to include dear old GL-W, is smear and bizarre personalised attacks. Never an answer to any questions though.

Do not be fooled by the smokescreens on this. The party needs serious reform at the most convenient moment. Without it, whatever number of MEPs we win, they could simply walk away on a pretext, leaving all our hard work and money raised dangling in the wind.

Unquote

posted by Martin |8:22 AM