UKIP Uncovered

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

Friday, January 30, 2004

NE Disciplinary Disgrace Debated

After many months of lying apparently forgotten, the disgraceful events over the sacking of the NE Regional Committee officers has again been raised on UKIP's main party discussion forum, thanks to a similar travesty of justice now having been perpetrated against the party's one-time Vice Chairman, Damian Hockney.

Before quoting the post on that matter, this seems a good opportunity to remind readers of my purpose in running this blog. My own appeal against candidature disqualification was, if anything, even more appallingly handled. To start it was a purely vindictive act designed to stain my reputation as I had already publicly stated that I was not cotinuing with my MEP candidature under the party's present corrupt leadership, and had been so quoted in the NE daily press. No date for any appeal hearing was ever set and, of course, never was I able to obtaing the names of the six members of the panel, four of whom supposedly arbitrarily threw the matter out without consideration. The only name I ever had was that of the acting chairman, Malcolm Woods, presently notorious for his reported claims regarding a UKIP pact with the BNP.

Herewith the posting from UKIP's ind uk:

Quote
Well, er, I already have been hauled up before the beak (on bent charges), but of course if anyone WERE to bring discipline proceedings against David, they would just be ruled out of court under the rule "no case to answer" ((rule 2.4). and then the person who had the temerity to bring them would be disciplined under rule 5.2 for bringing a "malicious" complaint.

But on a more serious note, the discipline process has been brought very low.

One of the reasons why I have caused ruffled feathers relates to discipline of someone else. Eight months back, there was a discipline case against the former North East chairman who had uncovered the membership corruption which led to a candidate being forced to stand down. The North East chairman was the whistleblower and of course it was him who was disciplined because he upset friends of the person caught.

The case, in which Nigel had a clear interest having been the one to suspend the NE committee in the first place, featured Nigel's secretary on the discipline panel! What was worse, it was done in secret and Party Sec Derek Clark refused to disclose who was on the panel to the NEC "for confidentiality reasons". I discovered what had happened and Derek became angry and threatened to discipline me for finding out and for bringing it up at the NEC.

Why not check these facts with Derek himself derekclark@.........

Others on the NEC remember that very well. The fact that Derek Clark could not see how corrupt that appears was worrying, but the bovine tendency won through and nothing was done because Nigel and Roger clearly wanted it to
stay that way. Very handy isn't it to have your own staff bring cases and your own staff judge them?

Does anyone think that is right?

And of course the same applies with my case. It was brought by an employee of Nigel's - a case which Nigel had said should be brought during the days preceding and in exactly that way. And then it was open to the Party Sec to include three other employees of Nigel's for the discipline panel itself. The bizarre claim they now make under pressure that they didn't include employees on my case is itself an admission that the principle is wrong, but itself is unconstitutional because you should not be announcing who is and isn't on a panel and you shouldn't do what Roger Knapman did the other day (as you remember ***). He claimed to the London meeting that he had no information about my case at all, and then it was proved (as the London chairman confirmed it after I brought it up) that that was not true and that
Roger had called the chairman and disclosed confidential details of my case to him three days before the thing was heard. You will remember Rob the uproar that that disclosure caused, and quite right too.

I am sorry but the discipline system is rotten and needs immediate reform. It's easy too (you don't need EGMs and large amounts of time and effort), but of course only if you have the will.

And we need to define properly what constitutes "confidential". Otherwise "confidential" means "what the party leader or chairman or Nigel or indeed anyone else in a position of power, finds inconvenient to be known", or "what we want to conceal". A 'corrupt and self-serving definition' to quote my own lawyers on the matter...
As ever
Damian
Unquote

posted by Martin |9:43 AM