I received today my copy of Independence news. It also contained two slips of paper and an envelope relating to Farage's financially motivated wish to join UKIP MEPs to a Pan European, EU supporting party. Farage wants UKIP to take the EU bribe and sell out our core principle of EU withdrawal so that he can have a bigger budget solely under his control to spend in Brussels. This money cannot be used to support our withdrawal cause in any way and opens the door for Pan European parties to contest the next UK European election. I fully expect Farage will be standing for a Pan European party. He may be prepared to sacrifice his principles for money but I, and I hope many other UKIP members, will never take the EU's poisoned Euro.
While on the NEC Del, David and I fought long and hard for UKIP elections to be conducted independently by the Electoral Reform Society to maintain the probity and integrity of UKIP elections. This has now been ditched. Both slips of paper say, "Should the UK Independence party MEPs join a European Political Party and a European Political Foundation under regulation EC 2004/2003". This wonderful piece of EU gobbledegook shows how far Farage and his cronies have embraced and support the EU!
One slip has YES on it and one slip NO. They are called ballot papers which must be returned to an address, UKIP Ballot, 11 Church Street, Hartlepool, TS24 7DJ. That is not UKIP's head office. It seems to be the address of the firm Atkinson Print Ltd who printed the ballot papers. What on earth is going on? No mention of checks or scrutiny of the electoral process, or returning officer. In short a system wide open to abuse and manipulation . No wonder UKIP is fast becoming a laughing stock.
This image is furthered by some real vote losing articles printed in Independence News. One exhorts UKIP to support Israel and is written by one Jacob Campbell, Press Officer, UKIP Friends of Israel. What can UKIP gain from this association given the largely justified bad publicity Israel gets in the media and the BBC?
Then we have the batty Earl opining on the EU threat to OUR herbal pills and potions. This all seems to have originated from the Earl's grandmother Barbara Cartland. Wow! He then describes properly licensed drugs as a 'big killer' and follows with the sentence, "Over 40000 deaths are recorded in the UK alone". What on earth does that mean? Another vote loser
Our MEPs certainly do their best to live up to Cast Iron Dave's fruit cakes and loonies description of UKIP. They should stick to pissing on Brussels hotel plants and not pissing on UKIP. Still there is always Monckton being warned off pretending to be a member of the House of Lords to restore sanity to our party.
8 comments:
Eric,
If you read page 7 of your Independence News you will see a piece headed "How the ballot works and what you should do" Paragraph 2 of the column starts with "As Returning Officer for the ballot......"
I assume you will be correcting your mistaken statement on your blog that there is no mention of a Returning Officer?
Paragraph 3 states "The ballot papers AND the reply envelope are security marked" I have not then gone on to detail what those security features are since anyone who did want to counterfeit the ballots would find that information very useful. The NEC even asked NOT to be told until after the ballots were returned. However, the features used make it virtually impossible to counterfeit the ballots or the envelopes. You are more than welcome to try but I'll give you a hint, there is more than 1 security feature and reproducing the ballots will need a specialist printer with the capability of printing banknotes.
The decision not to use Head Office was taken to prevent any possible allegations that UKIP Staff were fixing the vote. No employee of UKIP, MEP, NEC Member, Branch Officer or any other interested party will handle the returned votes. Surely that is what you would want?
Steve,
Thx for this
What I would want is for the whole process to be conducted by the Electoral Reform Society with no interested parties like the Party Chairman or NEC members involved in any way at any time and not some obscure printers I have never heard off. Who owns them? What UKIP previous contracts and contacts do they have?
Holding the count in Hartlepool is a bit like companies who want to avoid scrutiny at their AGMs holding them in unpopular, difficult to get to places like Wick or dare I say it Hartlepool.
Regards
Eric
The scrutiny is somewhat unbalanced as the Party Chairman is a Farage place man and pro Pan Europe party.
I have never attempted to counterfeit anything in my life. Try the Cabal.
As returning officer can you tell us will be doing the counting?
I'm sure you dare say anything you like Eric! I'll have one go at answering your questions then I have better things to do since I'm sure nothing I say will make the slightest difference to your opinion.
The "obscure printers" provide similar fulfilment services for several major clients, which for commercial confidentiality I cannot name. It does include at least one major insurance company who have all their AGM Proxy and voting papers handled by them. They are a private company and I'm sure you could google them if you wish to as their full name and address is included on the ballot paper! Not much secrecy there! They have worked for UKIP for many years as printers and fulfilment contractors for election addresses and other election services. They however have no retained contracts with UKIP and quote all jobs on a competitive basis.
The count is being carried out by staff of the fulfilment house. The only UKIP personnel present will by myself, the Party Chairman and one representative from each of the Yes and No camps. I will sit with the MD of the fulfilment house every day and verify the envelopes as they are returned. They will then be placed unopened in a secure room, with 24 hour CCTV monitoring, until the count is carried out. As the returns are in a reply paid envelope the Royal Mail will provide a daily count of envelopes returned. They must do this in order to calculate their bill. It is therefore impossible to change the number of votes cast. The use of yellow and lilac ballot slips also makes it impossible to mistake the voting intention and enormously simplifies the counting process.
The choice of Hartlepool was to enable me to personally oversee every aspect of the process. As regards being difficult to get to? That depends on where you are coming from. I personally find Newton Abbott to be a pain to get to! Hartlepool has regular, direct trains from Kings Cross and a convenient local airport at Durham Tees-valley or an international airport at Newcastle, less than 40 minutes away.
I hope this helps you be more confident about the process. BTW Do you know who owns the Electoral Reform Society? and that it's not actually the ERS who offer ballot services!
Steve,
The ERS is a charitable foundation which has been going for over 50 years. It is its wholly owned business subsidiary that conducts ballots on any voting system you want. I explained this to Farage and Whittaker at an NEC meeting but they both refused to accept it! The ERS conducts ballots for a huge number of organisations, BMA, AUT etc and has a national presence and unimpeachable reputation for integrity and probity, not something you could ever say about UKIP.
I note you do not name any of your printer's clients.
It really gives the game away to say the count is in Hartlepool to enable you, a member of the UKIP NEC and a wannabe UKIP MEP, to personally oversee every aspect of the ballot. That is the problem that could so easily have been avoided by using the ERS. Why not use the ERS? That is the question Farage can't answer. I look forward to your reply.
Eric
OK Eric,
I'll respond to your last comment then I'm not getting any further into it. I can't name clients because of commercial confidentiality. Surely something you have heard of?
To use the ERS would have cost approximately twice as much as the approach we have taken.
I now remember why I don't comment on blog posts. You make it perfectly clear you don't trust me or anyone connected with UKIP. Actually I have no trouble sleeping at night and my conscience is perfectly clear. If you wish to question my integrity or honesty then the problem lies with you not me. I find it highly amusing when I am accused of being Farage's puppet and you obviously think "Wannabe UKIP MEP" is some kind of insult. Have you never wanted to be an MEP? UKIP or otherwise?
Steve,
I never wanted to be an MEP I just wanted one less Farage syco on the SW slate. Ask Trevor Colman and he will tell you I wanted Trevor as our lead candidate and Alan Wood as number two.
Like you Alan was an elected UKIP District Councillor and great campaigner. I admired you both greatly for that and thought you both deserved to be high on UKIP slates but instead we got Dartmouth, Agnew, Andreasen and Bannerman etc all real electoral liabilities now and in the future.
I don't see how having UKIP MEPs in Brussels has advanced our withdrawalist cause one iota. All it has done is wonders for Farage's bank account and massage his already over inflated ego. If you want to be a UKIP MEP you are in Farage's power and his man at least until the election. Its as simple as that as NF likes to say.
Regards
Eric
Steve,
My quote from the ERS to conduct MEP selection ballot was around 90 pence per member so lets say a total cost of £14k. I read that UKIP's latest avoidable losing court case will cost £30k! UKIP obviously has money to burn.
Eric E
Hi,
I would incline to point out that UKIP having been proven beyond any doubt to be all too willing to lie and cheat and harbour such liars cheats and fraudsters as Stuart Agnew, Tom Wise, Annabelle Fuller, Marta Andreasen, Mick McGough, Malcolm Wood, Hugh Williams, David Bannerman, Mark Croucher, Douglas Denny, Derek Clark and others - ALL proven liars exposed and proven in public to be dishonest.
ALL of these individuals are or have been members of UKIP Leadership and its parasites.
Is it any wonder that UKIP then has such a low rating amongst the informed for ethical behaviour and trustworthy behaviour.
Steve Allison may make much of being honest personally but I do question his ethics and his judgement as without doubt he is aiding and abetting a corrupt organisation and providing them with a fig leaf.
You will note only this week he was holding forth duplicitously about a Court Judgement against UKIP.
As at now it is clear UKIP is unfit for purpose and this afternoon Farage himself was shamed into acting with faux morality his partners in his chosen PEPP Group The EFD having been caught out and exposed in the blogosphere and subsequently in the MSM.
Why would ANYONE trust these low lifes with their track record of venal self enrichment and agrandisement.
UKIP desperately needs a thorough top down clean-up to TRY to make it a viable election prospect for decent informed patriots who value British values unseen in UKIP at present.
Regards,
Greg_L-W.
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