Much information has been received by Lancaster UAF over the past week, the bulk of it concerning the Solidarity disaster, its unconstitutional and possibly illegal Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) and the bizarre and very probably fraudulent election that led to putting Patrick Harrington and the BNP firmly in control of the breakaway Solidarity - the one we'll refer to as Solidarity B.

First things first. If you've not been following the Solidarity fiasco, you're going to be easily confused, in which case you should check out some of our previous posts from June 22nd, June 25th, June 26th, July 5th, July 11th and July 17th.

It has been announced (and repeated ad nauseum) that the support for an EGM was overwhelming, with an excess of the two-thirds membership requirement voting in favour. We've now received five emails from members who have all reported that they never received a ballot paper at all, clearly indicating that there are one or two porkies being told. Based on past experience, we would suggest that the Griffin/Harrington camp are the liars.

The postal ballot itself was described as a 'nonsense', a 'farce' and a 'sham ballot' by a poster on the Stormfront nazi forum who said;

'The "voting paper" that i received was a nonsense. there was no number to the slip and no way of proving who was sending in the slip, and who would count them and how. It was a farce reminiscent of a Zimbabwean election...'

Indeed it was. There was no independent officer to oversee the process, nobody except Griffin and Harrington to send out the ballots, no tellers to count the votes, no indication of how many voted for, against or abstained, nor was there any proof that any ballot papers had been sent out at all.

All the information we have received indicates that the EGM was attended by just fifteen to twenty members - at least we assume they were all members - and a number of heavies, presumably to keep out the riff-raff like the rightful President and Vice-President of Solidarity, Clive Potter and Tim Hawke.

From this fifteen to twenty in attendance, seven were chosen to represent the Executive Committee and one, Graham Williamson, was clearly put in post as the union's public relations guru - despite the fact that he has no experience of public relations at all. More on Williamson here. Near as dammit half of those who attended then, went along in the sure and certain knowledge that they would be voted into a position of some authority - assuming we concede that the Solidarity B union has any authority at all, which we don't.

Whether you like them or loathe them, unions are rightly famed for one single thing - their strict adherence to the rules of the union, or the Constitution. The Constitution of any union is sacrosanct and no member or officer would consider breaking any part of it or bypassing it. A change in a union's Constitution will only be carried out (generally) at the Annual General Meeting.

Part of the problem with Solidarity B is that there is already a Solidarity union (Solidarity A) in place complete with a properly drawn-up and agreed Constitution. Harrington deciding, for whatever reason, that Solidarity A is not for him, and running off and forming Solidarity B, is, whatever way you care to look at it, entirely unconstitutional.

Disregarding all the convoluted facts and outright lies that have been told about the Solidarity split, the simple fact is that it was reported that Tim Hawke and Clive Potter had problems with Patrick Harrington's version of the accounts. It's worth remembering that that is what started the whole Solidarity fiasco off. Harrington then promptly denied the bona-fide President and Vice-President of Solidarity access to the Paypal account which holds the union's funds (in other words, the member's fees that were paid to the properly constituted Solidarity), and denied them access to the membership list and the union website.

With Nick Griffin's collaboration, he hastily presented his version of events and the wheels were put in motion for an entirely unconstitutional EGM. He also announced (again with the BNP's help) the establishment of three new Solidarity (B) websites, announcing repeatedly that they were the proper sites to visit. You'll note that Griffin and the BNP is prominent in this mess but only on Harrington's side. So much for the BNP's belief in fair play and (excuse my laughter) democratic values...

Much more here:  http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2007/07/solidarity-update-nick-griffin-heavily.html