Former UKIP NEC Member - Internal Revelations

Dr Eric Edmond, who has recently been 'dismissed' from the NEC of the UK Independence Party has published some revelations about his experience there.

We quote below from his blog - http://ukiptruth.blogspot.com

"For completeness I give my views on Martin Haslam (non-elected, but invited), Marta Andreasen (ex-officio, non elected) & Michael Zuckerman, elected.


"Martin Haslam is one of the most honest and decent men I have ever met. He was nominally deputy treasurer of UKIP but in fact did all the Treasury work. I am not quite sure what Ms Andreasen did. He has donated over £10000 to UKIP and also paid La Andreasen's salary of £36000 for the first three months. I have never met anyone with a bad word to say about Martin except NF. Nigel arranged for a journalist from the Independent newspaper to phone Martin when he was playing tennis with the sole purpose of entrapping Martin into speaking to a journalist without informing NF. NF brazenly stated he was testing Martin's loyalty. It beggars belief that anyone could doubt the integrity, honesty and loyalty of Martin Haslam. He is a man without fault.


Ms Andreasen's character shows through in her interview with the BBC. Click on the URL below, click on "Watch full interview” button, turn up the sound and settle down for 30 minutes informative viewing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/2293519.stm


After watching ask yourself if you would wish to work with this woman, have her working for you or have her represent your party and your views.


After Martin's entrapment he was removed from the NEC by NF. Ms Andreasen is now signing the cheques and keeps the UKIP books presumably in Barcelona where she lives.


As La Andreasen is now an MEP candidate she might well be signing cheques payable to herself. This is called a conflict of interest and is not recommended as good practice.


Mr Zuckerman also has ambitions to be an MEP. He is on the London list but Mr Batten and Mr Atkinson are ahead of him. Mr Batten and Mr Atkinson had some bitter arguments during the MEP election. Mr Bannerman has helpfully suggested if these arguments continue then Mr Batten and Mr Atkinson should be demoted in the list leaving Mr Zuckerman as numero uno.


Mr Zuckerman as party secretary and legal advisor was also helpful in confirming that Mr Bannerman being paid by EU money, an organisation EUKIP avowedly wishes to leave, was not a bar to Mr Bannerman being a member of UKIP NEC and formulating the charges against me. The ways of the law are indeed strange.


I expect to have more to tell you about Mr Zuckerman in the New Year.


On Tuesday, 9th Dec, I attended a meeting of my local branch committee to which our excellent chairman, Ken Perry, had invited our RO and long time friend of Mr Farage, Malcolm Wood to explain by what authority the NEC could remove an elected member whose only crime was to disagree with some of the great leader's views. Ken and the other committee members were clear that they were minded to dissolve the branch if necessary.


I was humbled and proud of the way Ken and all the committee members refused to be distracted by Mr Wood's dissembling and obfuscation. They repeated their argument that UKIP's ruling cabal had no democratic authority to expel me. That by so doing they were behaving just like the EU and were turning UKIP into a Fascist organisation. Why do we have elections at all if the NEC ignores the result? How can the NEC be prosecutor, judge and jury in its own case?


They have written to Nuttall demanding I be reinstated.The decision to disband will be deferred until they get his answer but they demand his answer by Xmas. They also noted they had not yet received a reply from Nuttall to their previous letter.Our committee represents all that is best in UKIP and indeed why I joined UKIP in the first place. Mr Wood's waffling and persistent avoiding of questions went down very badly indeed. As Mr Lincoln said, "You can’t fool all of the people all of the time"


End of article.


Interesting comments, its amusing to us the extent to which the 'players' in this 'political soap opera' are prepared to go to gain 'electoral list placings' when it is most likely that UKIP will gain 0 - 2 seats at best. Surely they would be better off taking up a new hobby.

PG UK

A One Election Wonder may wipe out UKIP

Declan Ganley's launch today of Libertas in Brussels, has apparently gained more media coverage than UKIP has achieved throughout the whole of 2008.

Whilst Ganley only wants to 'amend' the EU (as opposed to withdrawal), his impressive TV performances today - sounding honest and genuine rather than slick, his skill at political lobbying (as shown in the Irish Referendum) and his financial clout, will ensure considerable success at the EU elections in 2009.

Now to put this in perspective, what we mean by considerable success is, hundreds of thousands of voters moving away from the Conservatives, The Liberal Democrats and most seriously, from UKIP.

UKIP has failed since 2004, (and especially since Nigel Farage MEP gained the leadership), to make any political impression on the National Stage. This, despite one of the most important issues being discussed by every household in the Country, The New Constitution The Lisbon Treaty.

We believe traditional UKIP supporters will give up on Farage's 'dead duck Party' and go for Ganley's offer on a 'needs must' basis.

Our major worry is that Ganley will fail to gain the serious number of MEPs he needs in Britain and lose impetus and direction after the election in 2009, thereby, yet again leaving anti-EU activists in limbo land. Perhaps then, with UKIP totally decimated, Ganley's Dream emasculated, a New Movement may appear and 'fill the gap' that will have been created.

Is Declan Ganley taking over UKIP's Ground?

We have heard much in the past from Nigel Farage MEP, Leader of the UK Independence Party that he was moving UKIP onto traditional Conservative Party ground.

Well Nigel, it looks as if (providing the Telegraph has its story right) that Declan Ganley and Libertas wll be taking over your ground.

Admittedly, Libertas is not anti-EU but anti The Lisbon Treaty. However, there is no doubt in these offices, that with Ganley's wealth, and the poor showing of UKIP in recent elections, the number of UKIP MEPs wil be decimated in the 2009 Euro- Elections. UKIPs anti EU vote will be split between Libertas and the BNP, and why? Because UKIP MEPs failed to capitalise on the tremendous boost they had in 2004 and have spent the past 4 years squandering their 'in-built' advantage.

This is our assessment, even before any bad publicity 'hits the streets' about certain members activities and court case results.

What a Shame, that this, and the previous leadership, lacked the vision and qualities necessary to advance what could have been a serious force in British Politics. Too late now lads, we now understand why you spend so much time in the Tavernas - you realise it too.

GL-W Banned From British Democracy Forum

Well, the inevitable day has arrived.

GL-W has been banned from the formerly known UKIP Forum (now called the British Democracy Forum) for allegedly reporting an accusation of assault against a Party member, having been advised by the victim that this was so.

Rather than contact the alleged victim, The Forum Moderators contacted UKIP who apparently told them there was no truth in this allegation. Seems odd to us that the Moderators did not contact the 'victim' - after all he should know, shouldn't he?

It has been apparent for some 2 weeks that the Moderators were looking for an excuse (in our opinion) to eject GL-W as many of his posts had been withdrawn or 'cut', while others who said most distasteful things about GL-W and his family were allowed to keep their posts alive, and in some cases were re-iterrated by other members.

HARDLY A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD - We Think.

We have been suspicious for some time that The BD Forum has cosied up to UKIP either out of fear or favour - we genuinely do not know which. However, one thing is certain, without GL-W the BD Forum will be a less interesting place. It's now up to Junius to keep us all fascinated.

We have just one question at this point - if the alleged victim comes up with an 'incident number' for the reported offence, will the Moderators and Anthony Butcher apologise to GL-W and allow him to return?

British Democracy Forum - Getting Out Of Hand?

OK, we at PG UK knew that the return of GL-W to the BD Forum would liven things up a little, but we never expected the level of vitriol, personal attacks and Moderators in disarray as we have witnessed the past few days.

The usual suspects (Bob FM, Michael McGough, Mark Croucher) ran true to form, but we particularly dislike the side swipes at Lee (GL-W's partner) which McGough has made on a number of occasions. SHAME ON YOU MCGOUGH - Attacking a defenceless woman not involved in this political debate - WHAT A COWARDLY BULLY YOU ARE!

We certainly doubted your motives in defending questionable accounting practices conducted by some, we also questioned you claiming to be a PPC when you weren't, but we never took you to be a Coward attacking a defenceless woman! It just goes to show the depths some of these '2 bit players' are prepared to stoop.

We are also concerned that the Moderators have not dealt with the 'unproven' accusation levied on the Forum that GL-W has a record for handling 'stolen goods'. Unless proven otherwise, this is libellous in the extreme and should not go unchallenged.

It is little wonder that GL-W has retaliated with avengance, creating yet a greater atmosphere of tension, ill-will and general chaos.

There is no doubt that GL-W's rather robust and accusatory style has proven a catalyst for 'revenge attacks' but the fault, in large measure, rests with the Moderators for allowing the matter to get to this stage, and even worse, when some of them actually get involved in the abuse themselves.

A period of calm is called for and clear rules to be laid out, within which, all contributors should comply. We want to see genuine political debate not constant name calling and unsubstantiated allegations.

So come on Mr Butcher - lay out the ground rules and stop attacks on people not involved in the process and focus your Forum on intellectual argument.

PG UK

Is the BNP Infiltration of UKIP Charge just an excuse for Nigel's Failure at next year's EU Elections in June?

Having recently read the posts made by Bob FM, Mark Croucher, Douglas Denny, Michael McGough and others on the British Democracy Forum.

Having read the statements and letters issued by UKIP's Chairman Paul Nuttall.

Having listened to comments made by Nigel Farage and some of his MEP colleagues, a pattern is developing which is becoming quite clear.

They are preparing their 'GRAND EXCUSE' for next year's failure in the EU Elections. Having clearly failed to date as leader, and having based his entire strategy on success at the EU elections (we recall Nigel making it very clear at the time of his disasterous Local Election results that it was only the EU elections which were important to UKIP) it is perhaps, at last dawning upon him and others, that UKIP will fail miserably in June. (Frankly, not something my colleagues and I particularly savour, but feel is inevitable under the current leadership team).

So, what better excuse than to 'prepare' for his failure than to accuse claimed 'anti-Farage' members of being BNP 'plants or infiltrators'. The words BNP seem to 'roll off' the tongues of these UKIP 'senior cohorts' more readily and frequently than it does from Nick Griffin himself!

The hypothesis which we are putting forward based on evidence to date, is that Nigel's Contingency Plan is to invent a BNP infiltrators plot to blame for his inevitable electoral failure. Using his 'invented plot' he intends to clear out members, to suit his aims, culminating in a 'Night of the Long Knives' eary next year. UKIP can then be portrayed as 'rising from the ashes' as a Phoenix under its saviour - Nigel Farage.

Nigel Farage, we believe that members won't be so easily duped.

Accusing honest men with integrity, like Dr Eric Edmond, of supporting the BNP (you will note his anger at the dishonesty of this claim shown on his own blog - http://ukiptruth.blogspot.com) makes the foolishness of this strategy increasingly apparent.

Of course no-one wants BNP types in their Party, but to use BNP style methods to accuse innocent members, is dishonest and dishonourable, seemingly showing the depth to which the UKIP Leadership are prepared to sink.

We hope they sink no lower. SHAME ON YOU!

PG UK Team