UKIP Uncovered

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

Saturday, June 19, 2004

Piers Merchant - Was the real problem the 'Denials'?

A report at the time of the resignation of the one-time Tory MP, seems to indicate that the problem was not the sex scandal itself, but more the fact that he deliberately misrepresented the facts to his constituency committee. The following is an excerpt from a contemporary report (link to BBC report from here):-

Worse was to follow. Within days of the Sun's desertion, Piers Merchant, the Conservative MP for Beckenham, found himself splashed on the paper's front page, apparently in an adulterous liaison with a 17-year-old Soho nightclub hostess, Anna Cox.

(The link has access to a video clip of Heseltine calling for Merchant's resignation)

Michael Heseltine, the Deputy Prime Minister, sternly warned Mr Merchant that he should "consider his position" - code for "resign". Yet Mr Merchant denied the allegations and stayed on with the backing of his constituency party. He eventually resigned in October 1997 after reports that he had resumed his relationship with Ms Cox.

Note the statement that "Mr Merchant denied the allegations and stayed on with the backing of his constituency party"; consider that against the later revealed facts and then read this report in April of this year by Chris Lloyd, Political Editor of 'The Northern Echo', which full interview is linked from here and titled Twice bitten, still not shy.

The following quotes should be matched against all the now well known facts and any sensible person will immediately realise that here there is no shame regarding earlier misrepresentations and that the intervening years do not seem to have taught one of the founder members of the Tory sleaze movement where the margins of the truth really lie:-

"I was originally set up," says the man who is putting his head back in the political lion's mouth as the United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) candidate for the North-East in June's European elections.

"The story was invented and the evidence was then carefully assembled. There was some truth in it in that there were photographs of me in a park with a girl, but the problem was that the girl was persuaded to go there and the photographers were ready lined up in a ditch to take pictures they'd planned in advance.

"I'm not saying I didn't make mistakes, I shouldn't have got into that position, but it's the sort of game that's played when the tabloids are hunting to kill."

Then he laughs uproariously, his body shaking so much that he reveals the full glory of his patriotic socks. "And of course," he splutters with amusement, "they missed the biggest story of all, which was John Major and Edwina Currie - that's the funniest thing."

Mr Merchant survived the initial set-up, once escaping from his house through back garden hedges while the photographers were camped out the front, and was re-elected.

But then he was caught with Ms Cox when he should have been at the Conservative Party conference, and the game was afoot again.

It is perfectly clear that Piers Merchant resigned as an MP because he deliberately misled those who had supported him, in the face of overwhelming evidence against him. He not only misled those people but repeated what he had denied, was caught and his position became untenable and he resigned as an MP. That is an entirely different situation than the affair betwwen Major and Currie which he tries here to imply is comparable.

The problem with Piers Merchant is not merely one of sleeping with an underage girl. It is a matter of whether or not he can be trusted. All the evidence says that he cannot. He let down his supporters in the Beckenham Conservative Committee, his wife and family who he shamelessly uses in the above article to try to gather sympathy, his constituents, his colleagues in Parliament, his party and his country.

He is clearly a disgrace, whoever has proposed him as Chief Executive for UKIP, whether it be Knapman or Farage or whoever, stands similarly disgraced. All who have clung to their party memberships in the hope of something better emerging at the head of the party following the recent elections, must truly feel shattered this morning!

The latest report we have received on this subject is this:-

Piers Morgan has been taken on as CEO for a trial period. He will be doing the same work as Michael Harvey plus extra ''chores'' for a
salary which is believed to be between £75k and £100k p.a. five to
seven times more than the honest and hard working Michael Harvey
who used to be General Secretary.

Note if this was not a typographical error, we will have plenty more to say on the wisdom of the party employing the ex-editor of the Daily Mirror in due course!

posted by Martin |11:46 AM