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Petitioning UK Independence Party

This petition will be delivered to:

UK Independence Party

UKIP, The NEC, UKIP Members and Supporters

Julie Ann Saunders

Hove, United Kingdom

Robert helps many local branches, answers members questions, recruits new members and is an integral member of many veterans pages.For him to be dismissed the way he was, is nothing short of a travesty.Robert helped to unmask a convicted paedophile in the party last year.He also was the creator of the excellent online paper and curation service ” The Candidate” which was the reason used as an excuse to revoke his membership.This is completely unacceptable and Steve Crowther and the NEC must be asked for answers

Letter to

UK Independence Party

Re-instate the membership for Robert Hamling who we feel was unfairly dismissed from UKIP

 

The above information can be found at CLICK HERE

RESPONSES TO ACCUSATIONS BY STEVE CROWTHER Robert Hamling – revocation of membership

I have had some discussions with Mr Hamling in the past, over issues in which he has been making his opinions known, and his presence felt, online.

This is a very spurious statement from Mr Crowther. At the time I only had one Facebook and Twitter account of which many of my friends were family and personal friends who had nothing to do with UKIP. Any discussions that I had with my family and friends were nothing to do with UKIP. My family is mixed race and our close friends are mixed religious and some are gay so there is nothing controversial there.

Some months ago he took it upon himself to ‘warn off’ a party supporter, a convicted sex offender, with whom I was in contact and who had agreed with me to relinquish his party membership. Mr Hamling’s intervention, which he judged necessary on the basis of his experience in the Army, was not welcome.

I have much correspondence on this matter between Mr Crowther and myself and am willing to provide it upon request. With the permission of Will Gilpin I created a Facebook page and Twitter profile for Military Veterans in UKIP. The party supporter who Mr Crowther refers to (I will call him Mr X) contacted me via Twitter and informed me he was a UKIP Member with an interest in military matters (at this time I was unaware of Mr X’s history). During the days that followed Mr X and I had an exchange via Twitter discussing military issues. On 16th March I was forwarded an article by another UKIP member of my acquaintance about a sex offender who had recently been convicted for sexual offences including with minors. I immediately informed Mr Crowther by email who replied the next day to inform me that Mr X was now not a member but a “keen supporter”. Approximately four days later I was contacted by a couple of irate members who asked me if I knew a Mr X and if I knew his history. I replied that I had recently learned about the individual and informed Mr Crowther. I was basically asked what stupid game Mr Crowther was playing at allowing such and individual to be a member of the party. I informed them that Mr X was no longer a member but Mr Crowther considered him a keen supporter. This seemed to make the two individuals more irate so I asked what was the problem. They explained to me that they were planning on travelling to the Exeter Conference with their children and had been asked by Mr X if he could share a lift with them – he was willing to chip in petrol money. They had agreed to Mr X getting a ride with them and their children to Exeter but on discovering from another source the History of Mr X they promptly refused to take him. They were extremely angry that Mr Crowther had not made members aware of Mr X as he posed a serious risk to children.

I watched the interactions that Mr X was making with UKIP members with some concern especially members of YI). I informed Mr Crowther of my concerns in an email on 26th March in the following email exchange:

Steve,

Hope you are well. I spent many years as a military disciplinarian and I must restate my concerns regarding Aaron. I understand that he has campaigned with members/supporters etc of our party in Eastleigh so has come in to contact with minors. I also see that he is engaging more and more with senior members if our party. He is know to us to have a criminal record for sexual related offences and if it ever got out that we knew there would be questions asked which would do us no favours in the press – I am assuming that he has no CRB check known to you.

May I suggest that contact is made with him and he is made aware that the party knows of his convictions and his interactions with party members are being closely monitored. I think he must also be made aware that he not interact with minors during campaigns.

Regards

Robert Hamling

Steve Crowther responded:

Dear RobertThank you for this. I have been in contact with Mr Darkwood and discussed these things with him. I am aware of his history. He is no longer a member of the party, but remains an enthusiastic supporter. This seems to me to be appropriate. I am not sure what further action would be.

Regards, Steve

To which the response from Robert Hamling was:

Steve,I can help you with this issue because I have dealt with it in an official capacity before. You must work from the position of what is fair and reasonable for the people Mr X is dealing with and what is fair and reasonable to Mr X himself. You must also be prepared for the worst case scenario and have a statement ready (this is the tack we took in Defence Media).

You need to write an official letter to Mr X thanking him for his support and explaining why his membership was cancelled. If he wishes to continue unofficial support for UKIP there are boundaries that need to be established (no interaction with YI or campaigns where he may come into contact with children or young adults). Under no circumstances must he be permitted to cross these boundaries in any way. He must remove an inference that he is associated with or represents UKIP in any official way from his twitter, google+ account etc.

You will need to inform any officials who act on behalf of UKIP about his past whenever they interact with him (this is done on a need to know basis) and the potential risks that he poses. You must insist that the information they are given is kept confidential unless some interacts with him but needs to be aware for the above purposes.

Mr X himself will have been warned by the authorities about his interaction with vulnerable groups so you are on a safe wicket there. The important thing is that you must keep a record of all of this.

Statement:

‘We are aware of the conviction of Mr X (insert real name). We felt it inappropriate that Mr X be permitted to continue his membership of UKIP given the nature of the conviction and the interaction that our members have with the general public especially during election campaigns. We informed Mr X of our decision and our reasons when his conviction became known to us. Mr X has continued to support the aims and policies of UKIP in an unsanctioned manner as is his right as a private citizen.’

That should pretty much tick all the boxes you need.

Robert Hamling

It became apparent that if Mr Crowther had taken my advice and spoken to Mr X again or it was clearly being ignored by Mr X. I thought it prudent to inform those UKIP members who were having the most engagement with him (Margot Parker, Robert Kimble and Star Etheridge). They were clearly grateful that I had made them aware of Mr X’s history and said they would keep an eye on him.

Whilst on holiday in California on or around 11th April I was informed by Margot Parker or Robert Kimble that they had grown quiet concerned regarding the interactions of Mr X with members of YI and especially a young lad called Ben Walker who had recently turned eighteen. They informed me that Mr X was grooming young people with a plan to meet up with them. Being away from home and access to my computer I thought it prudent for the safety of the young individuals concerned and for the position of the party to inform Mr X that his activities with regard to his interactions with members of YI were being monitored and that he ought to stop what could be described as grooming of these young men. This exchange via private twitter message lasted for about an hour and at the end of the conversation Mr X agreed his actions could be classed as grooming which could result in him being found in breach of his parole conditions.

I immediately informed Mr Crowther of my actions in this email exchange:

Steve,

I am hearing that Aaron is deliberately targeting young UKIP members. Concerns over the things he is saying to them over twitter and the fact that he has attended the LBGQT & YI function in London is very disturbing.

Robert Hamling

Steve Crowther responded:

Dear RobertThank you for your emails on this. I will look into it and consult others.

Regards, Steve

Robert Hamling responded:

Steve,

Please speak with Robert Kimble & Margot Parker. I am on holiday in California at the moment so not always on line. I have conversed with Aaron who has told me that his councillor agrees some of his tweets are not acceptable.

Robert Hamling

Robert Hamling felt it appropriate to further state:

Steve,I have dealt with this issue for you. Aaron will no longer engage in innuendo on twitter with members of YI or suggest private one to one meetings with any individuals.

I spent a substantial part of my career dealing with issues such as this and other disciplinary matters. If you need advice or guidance in the future please let me know. I hope now to be able to enjoy the rest of my holiday in California.

Regards

Robert Hamling

Steve Crowther acknowledged receipt of these facts:

Dear RobertThank you.

Regards, Steve

From the above exchange it is clear that Mr Crowther appreciated my assistance in a complicated matter – What changed? (I can produce the full email exchange with dates and times if required). I have this morning been informed that Mr X has moved to Bournemouth and is once again on the prowl within the Poole branch. It is clear that Mr Crowther has failed to deal with this issue and it is likely to become an issue in the future given the criminal history of Mr X. (Link available upon request to Mr X and current activity with UKIP)

On 4 July Russell Hicks, Neil Hamilton and I were notified by Russell Hicks that Robert Hamling was publishing an online ‘newspaper’ which was republishing a story entitled ‘UKIP supporters desecrate graves with swastikas’.

So if Mr Crowther was unaware of the curation service I was using until 4th July why is the first screen shot date marked 1st July and the other screen shots not subsequently dated? What official position does Russell Hicks hold within the party?

On looking at the site I realised that this was a site which aggregated news according to some automated protocols, gathering both pro- and anti-UKIP news and a range of other stories based on criteria which appeared to include the EDL and other topics which we would not want associated with UKIP.

Mr Crowther again implies that he only looked at the curation service after being informed on 4th July but his first screen shot is of 1st July? The curation service works on the principle that it will reproduce information from the internet in the preceding twenty four hours via search engines using a specific word or term. The only word I used was UKIP so any links on the curation service back to the originators story had to mention UKIP in the text. As the curation service looks back over the previous twenty four hours for the term used the information was already in the public domain and would be found by anyone using the search UKIP and narrowing the search to previous twenty four hours.

The site was called The Candidate and openly stated that it was ‘brought to you by Robert Hamling. Your candidate for the UKIP NEC Elections 2013. Vote Robert Hamling’.

Not quiet sure what point Mr Crowther is making here. I have never denied using a curation service to provide links to text containing the text UKIP. Many other party members use the same service to produce information for their branches or followers.

Will Gilpin was in touch with Mr Hamling, asking him to desist from publishing anti-UKIP stories. As a result, Mr Hamling changed the name of his publication to ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, with the sub-title ‘Bringing you the news and views that the emperor’s advisors don’t want him to hear.’

Mr Crowther is not being quiet fair and accurate with the truth here. On 9th July Will Gilpin asked me to stop publishing a website that was hosting negative UKIP news stories. As I stated to Will Gilpin at the time I was NOT operating a website but a curation service that appeared in the form of a newspaper. Will Gilpin then proceeded to provide me a document that he claimed proved it was a website. I read up on articles about paper.li curation service to confirm that my understanding of the service that they provided was correct. Indeed if you look on paper.li website their lawyers talk about the fact that the service they provide is not a website because that would mean they were hosting other peoples intellectual property without consent which is illegal and would lead to prosecution. The curation service redirects readers back to the owners website so it does not host anything.

I decided to call Will Gilpin and discuss the matter because if he as an agent of the party was saying that paper.li were allowing users to operate websites to host news stories then the party could land itself in court facing a major lawsuit which it could ill afford to do. I asked Will what was the major issue that he was having with the curation service I was using and he said it was the unauthorized use of party logos and material. I explained to Will that the curation service contained no party logos or infringed in anyway party material. He informed me that looking at the paper he could see official UKIP logos and stories all over the paper. I reminded Will that the paper was a curation service and it displayed the link to the URL back to the owners website so there was no use of any UKIP material other than that which was already in the public domain and visible on search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. But to make sure it was clear that the curation service was not confused with any official UKIP service (although never having displayed any logo’s etc not sure how it could have been).

On 7 July I received from Jonathan Arnott a copy of an email he had received from Robert Hamling which I did not understand (attached).

A bit out of date sequence and not quiet sure how the reporting of someone who claimed to be a party official asking me questions that if I knew the answers to anyway I would not answer because that would place me in breach of the data protection act has to do with anything?

On 18 July I received a string of emails from members complaining about Robert Hamling’s site and the negative stories carried on it.

The curation service at the height of its popularity was shared by members over 900 times without one complaint. The only complaints I ever received was on 23rd July (the day after I stopped using the curation service for UKIP related text) which were asking were the paper had gone.

On 18 July I asked Will Gilpin to send the following message to Mr Hamling:

Dear Robert,

The Party Chairman has instructed me to write to you requesting that you cease operations of your paper.li site, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, on the basis that it publishes or republishes material designed to undermine the party and its campaigns.

Regards, Will

Will Gilpin
Chief Executive
UK Independence Party
07540 647777

This email contained the subject heading Website. As party representatives they need to desist from calling the curation service a website and accusing it of publishing material. Publishing someone’s material on your own website without their consent is a breach of copyright and illegal. The curation of information is not and is an accepted tool used by the BBC, MoD, FCO, Google, MSN etc etc.

Mr Hamling replied to Will Gilpin as follows:

Will,

Strange I have had 14 people tell me the paper is too bias in favour of UKIP.
You may also want to read this and remember what you once were.
http://www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/v_s_of_the_british_army.pdf

Mr Crowther again fails to tell the whole story and cherry picks the emails from a conversation. Will Gilpin questions my discipline in the email exchange. I served 24 years in the Military until I retired in 2011. During this time I was never subjected of military discipline and received an award for long service and good conduct in the form of a medal. I also left with a conduct assessment of Exemplary. When a former serving officer personally questions your discipline and conduct it is a kin to someone questioning the courage of a winner of a Victoria Cross. It is just not the done thing and he should have known better. Hence the reminder of what he once was.

On this date, I took 11 screenshots of the site (attached), showing:

1, 11. The masthead and ‘Editor’ details for the edition on 1 July (via ‘Archives’)
2. Including ‘Jews: the evil race of pedophiles behind racial conflict’, ‘Holohoax’ and ‘Middle England must listen to Tommy Robinson’ inter alia
3. Showing a section headed ‘EDL’
4–8. Other pages from 1 July
9–10. Front page from edition on 18 July with new ‘Editor’ details

I don’t dispute the fact that Mr Crowther took screen shots but are they on the dates that he states? It would be impossible to verify as only one of the shots displays a date and that is 1st July

On 19 July Will Gilpin reported that “Hamling has cleaned up his website further. It mainly posts by known UKIP sources, with exceptions noted below by our researcher. Do you still think I should be insisting on the site’s closure?”

I replied as follows:

“Clearly much better; but how do we guarantee that it doesn’t have things on it that would land us in the soup? Pat Condell doesn’t speak for UKIP. Why is there an item about guns? This now looks more like a UKIP site, yet we don’t control it and we don’t know why it carries what it carries, what it might carry next…

“I’d like to know what it’s actually trying to achieve – it has gone from being both pro- and anti-UKIP, to being largely pro- but occasionally anti-UKIP. It still focuses on UKIP, so we will be associated with it. I await Matt’s thoughts.”

As I have stated previously the only criteria used in the curation service was the term UKIP so the search would retrieve all material published over the previous twenty four hours that used the term UKIP. Given the service is automated and not influenced by human hand it is an unbiased view of UKIP from the view of any one searching stories about UKIP. It also acts as an excellent barometer to measure how well UKIP was doing in getting its message out to people. Clearly 18th July was a good day.

On 20 July Russell Hicks alerted me to further anti-UKIP content from the Blue Guerilla and Hope Not Hate.

http://www.theblueguerilla.co.uk/2013/07/neville-slams-abandoning-principles-as.html

and a photo of Nigel in a toilet amongst other EDL blogs etc

“I was booted out of UKIP for my trade union links” – Hope not Hate

http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/article/2862/i-was-booted-out-of-ukip-for-my-links-to-trade-unions

On that day took 2 screenshots of the site:

12. Masthead with lead story from Olly Neville ‘slamming UKIP’.
13. Is UKIP going down the toilet of history? and ‘HNH: I was booted out of UKIP for my links to trade unions’.

Again without dates to verify this on any of the screenshots taken apart from the first one it is impossible to verify when they were taken.

On this day Matt Richardson reminded me of my emergency powers under the constitution.

Do the emergency powers allow the chairman to be the witness, the prosecutor and judge all at the same time because if they do they go against every recognised norms used by other organisations.

On 22 July Russell Hicks, who had entered into dialogue with Mr Hamling to try to persuade him against the venture, contacted me again with further content running that day, concerning the EDL, and a female UKIP activist claiming that she had been assaulted at UKIP party conference; also a video from Pat Condell which was titled ‘UKIP Multiculturalism has Failed in Europe (Must Watch) 2013.
On this day I took a further 11 screenshots of the site:

What official position does Mr Hicks hold? I wont be bullied by anyone and I certainly wasn’t going to let him know that I had already agreed with Will Gilpin that the curation service would stop after the issue that was currently in circulation. I note again that the screen shots do not have a date on them so it is again impossible to confirm the date.

14. Masthead showing EDL story and Assault story (a story which is being used by our detractors to try and discredit the party, without proper foundation).
15. Continuity to
16. Showing a video of Tommy Robinson and Vote UKIP Pat Condell
17. Inc ‘Media bias and UKIP’s failure highlighted yet again’
18. ‘Spiked drink’; Rutland CC to take action against UKIP members; UKIP donor says women in trousers and hostile
19, 20, 21, 22, 23 Remainder of front page

Still impossible to confirm the date as no date is displayed

24. Robert Hamling’s Twitter page identifying him as ‘UKIP Member, Prospective candidate for UKIP NEC’, and advertising The Emperor’s New Clothes.

The curation service uses twitter to create an account and I have not denied using a curation service.

On 22 July I sent an email to Robert Hamling revoking his membership as follows:

Dear Mr Hamling

I am writing to inform you that I am revoking your UKIP membership today, under articles 11.9 and 11.5(f) of the Party constitution.

The reason for this is that you are daily publishing a website which carries:

– negative and critical news and feature stories about UKIP
– content representing organisations such as the EDL positively
– content which purports to be from UKIP but which is not
– content which contains material including holocaust denial and anti-semitism

The format of your online publication is such that it represents a UKIP outlet – it is associated directly with you via its URL and other links – yet UKIP has no control over its content and it contains every day material which, if associated with UKIP, would bring us immediately into disrepute. In addition, it cannot be the business of any UKIP member to republish, and therefore encourage wider readership of, material which directly criticises and contradicts UKIP.

The site ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ is directly attributed to you via its URL; its archive material makes clear that it is published by someone intending to be elected to UKIP’s NEC; your own Twitter site (without authorisation) is entitled ‘Robert Hamling UKIP’ which repeats your intention to be elected to UKIP’s NEC.

You have been warned about this by the Chief Executive and others, and asked to take the website down. Your refusal to do so leaves me with the conclusion that the damage which this website could do to the Party is not of concern to you.

I therefore revoke your membership herewith, so that the party cannot be held in any way responsible, even indirectly, for what you have published. Please remove all reference to UKIP from your online personal identities.

Yours, Steve Crowther
—

The date for the email on Mr Crowthers system and mine is 25th July. Is Mr Crowther claiming that I some how hacked my own service provider and his to manipulate the date to make it appear that the email was sent three days before it was. If he is that is a very serious accusation and I would like to see his evidence to support such an accusation.

(Attached is a screen shot from my in box showing date of email)

On 25 July Mr Hamling replied to my email (which in his reply appeared to have been dated 25 July, though was sent by me on 22 July) as follows:

The paper was removed a number of days ago so your reasoning is flawed.

He is making serious accusations of me interfering with systems owned by his email provider and mine. I have neither the skill nor the aptitude to attempt such a feet. I can however provide the email showing that it was sent and received on 25th July as stamped by the service provider. This would be accepted in any court of law that it is the actual date it was transmitted.

On reading this I confirmed that the page had indeed been removed. However, when I sent the revocation of membership it had not, as I had written the description of content, shown above, while looking at it.

The evidence does not support this statement.

My reasoning was, and remains, that Mr Hamling put the party into severe jeopardy by his publishing venture, and was reluctant to take it down until the point at which his membership was revoked.

Not a true statement of the facts and certainly not supported by the available evidence.

Moreover, the choice of content which the ‘paper’ covered was such that I severely doubt Mr Hamling’s political judgement and/or attachment to UKIP and its principles.

As I have stated previously. The curation service is automated and the only term that it uses is UKIP. The service provided an excellent barometer of how well the UKIP message was being received. It acted as a media monitoring service (which is used by most government departments, the BBC and other news services. It also provided an impartial view of news about UKIP that was currently in the public domain.

An earlier page included a video of Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech; the constant repetition of the ‘Spiked Drink’ story was actively helping our opponents; the ‘paper’ included a section on the English Defence League – why?; and from the Jews/Pedophiles story one could quickly reach holocaust denial and even sicker allegations. Why was this story ever selected for publication on a supposedly UKIP-related site?

I noted this evening on channel 4 news that Nigel Farage talked about Enoch Powell’s speech. My family is mixed race so I don’t particularly agree with the rivers of blood speech. A point that Mr Crowther is failing to grasp in all of this is that the Curation service uses the term UKIP for its material. It is totally automated so the stories he mentions must mention UKIP somewhere in the text for the service to select them.

I believe that this experience leads one reasonably to the view that Mr Hamling’s attitudes are not compatible with membership of UKIP; and that his unwillingness to remove these items when asked casts serious doubt on his commitment to the party.

I could not disagree more with this final statement. The fact is that Mr Crowther did/does not understand what a curation service is. From accusing me of using UKIP logos without permission – I didn’t they were in the URL that led back to the owners page. To publishing anti UKIP news stories – I didn’t they were already in the public domain and published by others. It is Mr Crowther’s failure to grasp the concept of Social Media and use it fully to the benefit of the party. Mr Crowther openly admitted to me in a telephone conversation that he hates Social Media and wishes it would just go away. Perhaps not the attitude from a party chairman who is supposed to be taking the party forward and developing it.

It is clear to me and many others who support my candidacy for the NEC that the attempt to revoke my membership is not about my use of a curation service. If it was I would expect to see a large swathe of UKIP members having their memberships revoked because there are many many members and branches using such services to provide them with news stories (good and bad) that are then placed on Facebook, Twitter and other mediums. It is about the likelihood of me being elected to the NEC. By nature I believe in democracy at all levels. I am a reformer and a progressive. I would bring to the NEC a voice for the members and would hold those in positions of authority to account on behalf of the members. I believe our greatest assets are our members and would make extensive use of their skills. I have zero political ambition and don’t need anymore friends. My reason for joining UKIP was to help get the party elected to government in Westminster and get us out of the EU.

The evidence that Mr Crowther has produced does not stand up to scrutiny. His actions of revoking my membership is flawed as he as made himself witness, prosecutor, judge and executioner. The process he has used obeys no recognized norms of any other organization I can think of so to me it does not meet the test of being fair and reasonable.

Robert Hamling
6th August 2013

Attachment:

Screen shot of email sent and received on 25th July

 

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