UKIP Uncovered

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

Friday, October 29, 2004

Twelve Burning and Unanswered Questions put to the Party Secretary

A UKIP member has asked the Party Secretary 12 key questions - see below -regarding recent matters of controversy in the party. A week later (29 October) he has yet to receive a reply to these straightforward questions. We will try to post up the replies here as soon as the Party Secretary gives the answers:

12 QUESTIONS TO THE PARTY SECRETARY, 29 OCTOBER, 2004
“TWELVE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS”

QUESTION 1: Will a Branch Chairman who wishes to obtain a definitive list of all Branch Chairmen, in order (a) to verify how many valid, registered, Branches there are and (b) in order to contact other Chairmen who wish to call an Extraordinary General Meeting if the leadership does not call a leadership election, be refused?

QUESTION 2: If they wil be refused, will it be on the grounds given by Mike Nattrass yesterday, that 'it is a breach of the Data Protection Act', or for some other reason?

QUESTION 3: If it is (as Mike Nattrass claims) because of the Data Protection Act, please specify what part of the Data Protection Act prevents a Branch Chairman of an organisation from knowing the names and addresses of other Branch Chairmen of that same organisation, quoting the relevant Paragraph or Regulation of any of the Data Protection Acts
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YOU WROTE on 21 OCTOBER: “Should the need arise, we could invite the branch wishing to contact all the others to send enough copies of any 'letter to Branch chairmen' to Birmingham, with the appropriate postage. However, to have several chairmen asking for their message sent to all the others would be an unacceptable situation. I am taking advice as to what action we should be considering taking here”

QUESTION 4: Please state what advice you have now received on Branch Chairmen wishing to contact other Branch Chairmen, and from whom
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YOU WROTE on 21 OCTOBER: “You will have to ask Ashford if they intend divulging the results of the straw poll”

QUESTION 5: By 'Ashford' do you mean UKIP Ashford or a private telesales company based at Ashford?

QUESTION 6: Who instructed 'Ashford' to carry out the Chairmen's poll?

QUESTION 7: Did the Party N.E.C. authorise the poll to be carried out?
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YOU WROTE on 21 OCTOBER 2004: “If there are only 181 branches 'registered' then it is clear that any notification system must have fallen behind schedule even before I took over a month ago. I will investigate. I understand the figure of 233 to be correct”

QUESTION 8: I have downloaded the list of 181 Branches from the Electoral Commission website. Can you please supply at least a list of Branches, i.e. their names, even if not the names and addresses of Branch Chairmen. Presumably when Mike Nattrass said yesterday that there were '233 Branches' (incidentally 13 more than in the survey announced on Tuesday) he was working from an official list

QUESTION 9: What is the penalty for failing to register new Branches within the statutory 14 days?

QUESTION 10: What action are you now taking to ensure that the Electoral Commission has an up-to-date lsit of UKIP Branches?
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YOU WROTE on 21 OCTOBER 2004: “Because the UKIP Business meeting now takes place in the Spring no new disciplinary panel appointments were made at conference and the existing panel is deemed to be carrying on”.

QUESTION 11: I have read the UKIP Constitution carefully and it is quite specific in stating that members of the Discipline Panel are elected until the next Annual Conference. If you say current members of the Discipline Panel are 'deemed to be carrying on', when, if at all, did the N.E.C. 'deem' them to be continuing in post and are you absolutely sure that - given the strict wording of the Constitution, the N.E.C. is *allowed* to 'deem' that they continue to be members of the Panel?
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YOU WROTE on 21 OCTOBER: “Any vacancies arising from resignations before the Business meeting will be filled by names I may nominate. The current Disciplinary Panel Chairman is George Stride. Why do you need to be able to contact him and the panel members? All discipline matters should be referred in the first instance to the Party Secretary”

QUESTION 12: For the avoidance of doubt, please state the current procedures - and the various options open to you as Party Secretary - for investigating a complaint, on your being notified of a disciplinary complaint that a UKIP member wishes to raise against another member
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posted by Martin |11:26 AM