A Shocking and Gross Perversion

The proposed amendments to the British National Party's 12.2 constitution are a shocking and gross perversion of the intent, meaning and substance of the constitutional proposal as accepted at the party's conference in December 2010, and must be rejected.

The distortions are plainly evident in three important areas:

1. The party's December conference voted for a NEW constitution, NOT to amend the existing one.

2. The proposed amendments are in direct contradiction to the express intent and content of the proposal as debated at the Advisory Council, placed online for review and voted on (twice) at the party's annual conference.

3. The procedure for the constitutional review, as laid out in writing at the party's December conference and published in the conference booklet, has not been followed.

To deal with these points in detail:

1. A NEW CONSTITUTION, NOT AN AMENDED ONE

In August 2010, the Advisory Council and the party chairman instructed Andrew Brons MEP to officially launch a constitutional review committee after numerous complaints about the 12.2 constitution.

This is an important fact to remember: it was the AC's (and this ultimately the party chairman's) express order to review the party's constitution, and was NOT the product of some factional divide.

The purpose of the review was to draw up a new constitution and submit the proposals to the party's December 2010 conference for approval or rejection by the Voting Members.

Mr Brons duly held the review, and asked for submissions from party members, as instructed by the AC.

To make sure they were all publicly accessible, all submissions were put online for review and further discussion. That website is still online and can be found here.

Ultimately, three proposals were selected by the review committee, and submitted to the December 2010 conference.

The three proposals were:

- Keep the current (12.2) constitution;

- A new constitution which split the administration of the party from the political leadership. This proposal included a National Executive which was directly elected by the members which would replace the current AC (which, because it is nominated by the chairman at his discretion, is powerless and always subservient).

- A new constitution which split the administration of the party from the political leadership and whose National Executive was indirectly elected by the members. This would have seen the branches elect chairmen, who then would form the Regional Council. That body would then elect the majority of representatives on the National Executive. This was my proposal.

It is worth stressing that all of these proposed constitutions were submitted for review online, and anybody could make any input into them at any stage.

Furthermore, I must also point out that my proposal was discussed at the Advisory Council prior to the conference, where it was agreed that it would be submitted to the conference.

The conference voted overwhelmingly in favour of proposal 3, after a debate which stretched over two days.

I illustrated the exact workings of each proposal with a PowerPoint slide show, and asked the conference to vote on the proposal twice — on the Saturday and the Sunday. Each time, that proposal was adopted by an overwhelming majority.

The amendments which have now been distributed to members are NOT the proposals which were submitted online.

The amendments which have now been distributed to members have NOT been discussed at the AC.

The amendments which have now been distributed to members were NOT approved by the party's annual conference.

It is a shocking lie to claim, as the letter which accompanied the "amendments" does, that they were "discussed and agreed by an overwhelming majority" at the conference.

These "amendments" are, with minor exceptions, COMPLETELY DIFFERENT to the proposal as accepted at the conference.

The conference approved a NEW constitution.

The "amendments" which have now been circulated are just that — amendments to the existing constitution.

And, it is worth repeating, even these "amendments" bear almost no resemblance to the proposals as adopted by the party conference.

On that basis alone, they must be rejected.

2. "AMENDMENTS" ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TO THOSE APPROVED

The "amendments" differ substantially in form, intent and content from that adopted at the party conference.

(For the sake of clarity, readers should be aware that the phrase "General Members' Meeting, or GMM, is another word for Extraordinary General Meeting, or EGM. They are one and the same thing).

Motion 1 of the proposed "amendments" seeks to create a five-year fixed term of office for the leader of the party.

The proposal makes no provision for this fixed term of office to be interrupted should the elected leader go mad, make terrible errors, or lose the confidence of the membership.

The only "counterbalance" to this fixed five-year term is if a GMM votes, by a two-thirds majority, to countermand a decision by the leader.

Even then, under the "amendment," the leader is not obliged to resign, only to accept that decision.

In other words, the "amendment," if passed, it will see a leader elected for a fixed period of five years, with no legal way of dislodging him or her for that time.

This is sheer madness, and is directly contradictory to the content and intent of the proposal adopted at the party conference.

The original proposal, as put online for review for all to see, discussed at the AC and approved by the conference, said the following:

"2.61 The position of National Leader shall be valid for four years, subject to the right of recall by the National Executive as outlined below.

..

2.64 In exceptional circumstances, the National Leader may be removed from office by a vote of 75 percent of the full National Executive in terms of a no-confidence motion. The quorum required for such a decision is 90 percent.

2.65 In order to ensure that a decision taken in terms of section 2.64 is representative of the majority of the party structure, any National Executive taking such a decision will also instantly be dissolved and will have to seek re-election from its constituent bodies (the Regional Councils)."

In other words, the original proposal proposed a four-year term of office, and specifically gave the right of the National Executive (which would NOT be appointed by the leader) to recall the leader if he or she went mad, made disastrous decisions etc.

This was a balance between the prospect of endless annual challenges and the demand for a longer fixed year term.

At the time I thought it quite reasonable, and the right of recall AT ANY TIME given to the independent (and representative of the membership) National Executive Council, would be a sufficient brake on any abuse of power by the leader.

This important provision has been thrown out the window in the proposed "amendment."

(I have in the interim, heard compelling arguments why there should not be a fixed term of office at all. I am more than happy to go along with that).

Furthermore, the proposed amendment reduces the number of signatures needed to ten and demands a £500 deposit of all candidates.

It is claimed that the reasoning behind this is that it will allow people to more easily take part in leadership contests.

Party members will recall that this topic was discussed in detail at the GMM held at the end of the 2008 Red, White and Blue festival.

At that meeting, it was overwhelmingly decided to raise the number of signatures required to stand as a candidate to stop no-hope annoyance candidates continually disrupting the party's workings by putting themselves forward each year.

That proposal, made by myself, was then endorsed by the party chairman.

I wonder what has changed since then?

In any event, the 10 signatures and £500 deposit story are NOWHERE in any of the online review discussions, was not discussed at the AC and NEVER MENTIONED at the party conference in December.

It is outrageous that they are now presented to the members as "true" to the proposals accepted at the conference in December 2010.

They are not.

They have been made up out of thin air, and bear no relation to any discussion, paper, proposal or motion.

Motion 2 of the proposed amendment is another scam.

It proposes changing the name of the Advisory Council to the "National Executive" and changing its composition to the following:

-  The party chairman;

- A Treasurer (appointed by the chairman);

- Head of Administration (appointed by the chairman);

- A National Organiser (appointed by the chairman);

- Two other individuals (appointed by the chairman);

- 11 regional organisers (appointed by the chairman);

- 11 regional chairmen (elected by the regional councils);

- 1 Councillor's representative, elected by the councillors at each party conference;

- One deputy treasurer, appointed by the National Executive.

This means that if this motion is approved, the "national executive" will consist of 29 people, of who 16 will be directly appointed by the chairman (as is the case with the current AC). This figure rises to 17 when the chairman is included.

The 12 remaining members of the "national executive" are allegedly supposed to be "representative" of the party membership.

The "amendment" says that they will be elected by the regional councils which are in turn elected by the local branches.

However, this "amendment" deliberately undermines the proposal as adopted by the party conference in December 2010 in two ways:

- Firstly, the Regional Organisers are still appointed by the leader at his or her whim. I am sure I do not have to detail recent events in this regard to explain why this is such a bad idea.

- Secondly, the duplication of "regional organisers" and "regional chairman" in the "amendment" is an obvious attempt to subvert the party's democratisation as demanded by the December 2010 conference.

If passed, the "amendment" ensure that 17 of the 29 "national executive" members will still be directly appointed by, responsible and subservient to, the party leader.

Compare this to the proposal as adopted by the party conference, in terms of which NOT ONE of the national executive members was appointed by the party leader.

Furthermore, the powers of the "amendment" national executive are purely advisory.

They will be able to appoint an auditor, a secretary and, by a two-thirds majority, call a GMM. That is all.

Under the proposals adopted by the conference in December 2010, the National Executive had real power, including the right to appoint staff and control the administration of the party, completely separate from the leader (who only had control over the political direction — in other words, just like any other political party in Britain).

In every aspect, Motion 2 is therefore a quantum leap difference from the proposal as discussed at the party conference, and is even more outrageous than Motion 1.

I am shocked that the covering letter to the "amendments" claims that they are "true" to the principles as adopted at the conference.

They are not.

They must be rejected out of hand.

Motion 3 has nothing whatsoever to do with the constitution, and is only a contract between the party and its elected officials.

I am baffled why it is even being put to the GMM and can only think that it is a poor trick designed to try and divert attention away from the real issues by filling up time at the GMM.

3. "AMENDMENTS" ARE PROCEDURALLY INVALID

The booklet handed out at the party conference in December 2010 spelled out in writing the procedure that was to the followed should any of the proposals serving be accepted.

Under the heading "Voting Members and Constitutional Changes 2010," the booklet read (page 11):

"If one, or a combination, of these is passed in principle by the Voting Members this weekend, it will then be honed and 'de-bugged' by the Advisory Council and through a process of online review and consultation before being presented, true to the principles approved by the Voting Members, to an Extraordinary General Meeting of the party's general members (which of course includes all voting members) for adoption or rejection as that meeting decides."

The process to be followed was therefore:

1. Vote on the proposals at the Conference;

2. Advisory Council to hone and debug the proposals;

3. The final draft constitution to be put online for review for the members to see;

4. The proposed constitution be submitted to the EGM (GMM).

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However, the reality is:

- The AC has NOT discussed, "honed," or "de-bugged" the proposed constitution;

- The AC has not even had sight of these "amendments," let alone discussed them. They were conjured up this past week and shown to no-one;

- The "amendments" have NOT been put online for review by the membership.

In other words, the party leadership has failed utterly to carry out the specific, written directives and promises which were made IN WRITING to the members at the party conference.

The "amendments" are a blatant attempt to undermine all attempts to reform the party, and must be defeated.

I would urge all party members to attend the GMM and ensure that these proposals are overwhelmingly defeated. The future of the party depends on it.