It seems unfair not to mention our MEP's appearances at the NEC. The permanent member is Derek Clark who was elected along with, or because, of Kilroy in the East Midlands in 2004. Mr Clark is even now rewriting the UKIP constitution to make it easier for the ruling cabal, via unelected Chairman Nuttall, to expel those UKIP members who fall out of favour with the great leader. The infamous hit list will of course come first. This masterpiece of constitutional drafting will be put to the members for approval in the January edition of Independence News. It will be supported by some one sided articles pointing out how this will enable the party to function more 'efficiently' by making it easier for the ruling cabal to get rid of any party members who disagree with NF. Who needs democracy? It is demonstrably inefficient. Political elitism as practised in the EU is a clearly superior system.
The whole business will be eerily similar to Wilson's 1975 referendum on staying in the Common Market. A one sided series of presentations with a few BNP scare stories included for added spice. Voting slips will be included with the News and a rapid response requested. There will be no debate. I can confidently predict the ensuing ballot will not be handled by the Electoral Reform Society or any other independent agency. Mr Clark opposes using the ERS. The ballot will be done in-house. It is the UKIP way.
I first crossed swords with Mr Clark at the NEC this summer. The House of Lords committee considering the Lisbon Treaty had earlier requested submissions from interested parties on the Treaty. Our excellent branch chairman Ken Perry noticed this and requested all the Yeovil branch committee make our case to the Lords. This we all did and about two months later a large red backed book came through our letter boxes giving the minutes of the committee plus a list of all these who had submitted evidence and views. All the Yeovil committee were named in it. Many other MEP's had submitted evidence and were named including a number from outside the UK. Not one UKIP MEP however had submitted anything.
I produced this report at an NEC meeting and asked Mr Clark to explain why neither he nor any of his colleagues had submitted their views to this important committee. Mr Clark stated he had not known about it, that we should have told him and anyway he had been very busy with his EU committee work at the time. I made three points to Mr Clark:
The only organisation that could get us out of the EU is the UK Parliament of which the Lords is part. The EU committees he regarded as so important could not, and would never, take us out of the EU.
He has a large research budget and has a number of full time, paid, research assistants. MEP's from other parties including non-UK parties knew about this committee. Why did he not know?
Finally, he had been elected as a UKIP MEP to get us out of the EU not to sit on their committees and thus lend democratic legitimacy to the EU.
Mr Clark fulminated, huffed and puffed and blamed me as is the UKIP way.
(I should say that Lord Pearson did submit evidence as did Torquil Dick Erikson who lives in Rome but obviously they had not informed Mr Clark either.)
Mr Clark further excelled himself at the infamous Nov 3rd meeting. He became very angry shouting that the East Midlands was 'his seat'. At the same meeting, Mr Bloom also became over-excited and hysterical.
Mr Clark it was who supported the EU core idea of subsidiarity at the infamous Rumania meeting of the IndDem group. People like Mr Clark and Mr Nuttall are extremely useful to NF. The great leader gets his way. Nothing links directly to him. It can be denied if anything backfires. It is therefore distressing to hear rumours that neither Mr Clark or Mr Nuttall may win MEP seats in 2009. This sadly may have to be accepted as a price worth paying.
Mr Clark is a reminder of how UKIP MEP's exposed to EU temptations and flattery can go native and forget why they were elected in the first place. He is not the only one. He seems to exhibit many symptoms of the EU contagion. There is unfortunately no known cure for this condition. The only known way to avoid contracting it is not to take the EU's Euro in the first place. As St Paul, a citizen of Rome said, the love of money is the root of all evil.
Animal Farm, George Orwell's satire on communism, gives an excellent account of pigs going native. It details how UKIP has developed and predicts where UKIP is going. It is well worth a read. The main players in UKIP are readily identifiable. Ask yourself, does the overnight re-writing of the Farm rules on the Barn Wall ring a bell?
