Dear colleagues and friends,
I am very sorry to have to say, I have today made the decision to resign from UKIP.
By being deselected as the candidate for Portsmouth South it has made my position in the party untenable and impossible to support the party any longer.
Nigel and the leadership hierarchy have demonstrated conclusively that they are willing to manipulate the MP candidates’ selection process by the ruse of proclaiming chosen ‘targetted’ seats, and have changed the rules recently to allow this to be done, and where the NEC can choose the candidate rather than the membership of the branch. Those choosing will be under the shadow of Nigel Farage.
It is direct interference with the fundamental principles of democracy in the party.
The changed rules allowing this interference (which are on the website) state any decision in choosing a candidate is to be made jointly by the NEC and with the branch constituency concerned. No such discussions happened with Portsmouth South, where I have assisted the chairman and others in starting the branch and obtaining six councillors in the recent local elections from nothing before.
The deselection was arbitrarily announced with no consultation or warning to branch chairman or myself. I am apparently, “free to stand anywhere else” – but not in Portsmouth South ! This is sheer nonsense by any standard, and reflects the cynical desire to stop a particular candidate now it is known (after eighteen months of the candidate becoming known publicly as the UKIP candidate for the election) ….that it is a winnable seat. What hypocrisy! what anti-democracy shown by the party that declares it is the only truly democratic party in Britain.
Blatant interference with constituency candidates has never been done before in UKIP, and especially where an already properly adopted canidate for a general election was exclusively chosen by the constituency branch members. What has happened to Portsmouth South is in my opinion immoral, undemocratic, and deeply corrupt.
This gerrymandering by subtle manipulation of the candidates’ listings was introduced for the first time in UKIP with the MEP selection process too, promoted by various officers at top level and others. I became very unpopular at the top by trying to stop it. Perhaps I have lived with knowing what I believe to be inherent corruption in the party for far too long, and been nieve in thinking I could ameliorate it.
UKIP has come of age in British politics. It was for a while, but it is no longer, the truly democtratic “Peoples Party” its leader proclaims. No longer is it the political party “different to all the rest by being transparent and honest” …which I joined in 1999. Sad but true.
ON a more positive note: UKIP has nearly completed its task and it’s only role in British politics, which I set out to help accomplish over twenty years ago, initially with the Referendum Party – to force the other political parties into a position to give the British people a referendum on membership of the EU. This is now being implemented by the Conservative Party due to the pressure of UKIP.
Once a referendum is achieved, UKIP’s original role is then finished. It’s raison d’etra will then be extinct, and as a party it will fade into the obscurity of footnotes in history. Nevertheless, I am still proud to have been a part of it for over fifteen years to help being it to its peak now and force a referendum for the British people on remaining in the EU.
Douglas Denny.
Bosham.
West Sussex.
Greg Lance - Watkins (Greg_L-W)
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