Is the Conservative Party’s Disciplinary Procedure Corrupt?

[Background: In late 2010 an anonymous complaint was brought against two popular elected officers of the North Somerset Conservative Association which resulted in their being banned from holding office for three years. The event has been described as a stitch-up and the membership of the Association has been resentful and at times in uproar, but nevertheless the arrogance of the Party Board has shown no moderation. The Association has been kept in “Supported Status” for eighteen months and the Trustees have had their Party membership suspended and threatened with disciplinary action – largely because they disputed the legality of some of the Board’s actions.]

I have been accused of going too far in describing the disciplinary procedures of the Conservative Party as corrupt. But it is a straightforward matter to discover whether I am correct or not.

If the procedures taken against Carl Francis-Pester and Chris Allcock were really about the alleged offences that they committed; if the offences were genuinely wrong or against the Party rules; if they were charged using an open and just procedure; if they were investigated and penalised in the same way that anyone else would have been, then the events could have been an honest and just exercise of disciplinary procedures.

If, however, no-one was really concerned about the offences, but used them as pretexts to remove Carl and anyone who supported him from office; if the offences against them were obviously contrived; if an insider, an ex-officer of NSCA with a grudge, had generous access at CCHQ to persuade members of the Board and committees of Carl’s guilt, while the other side of the case was not being heard; if the investigator and others promoting the disciplinary procedures had a pre-existing bias against Carl; if significant elements of the procedure were held secret, then that would be corrupt.

The matters to be considered are
1. The original complaint.
2. Supported Status
3. The Council Candidates
4. Lord Gold’s Judgement of April 2011:
a) the vehicle
b) the office
c) fiefdom
5. The Association Complaint against Peter Wright
6. The second disciplinary procedure of May-June 2012
7. The new anonymous letters
8. The audit of election expenses
9. The trustees.
10. And here’s another thing

1) The first Complaint
It has been alleged that the affair began with a complaint by an anonymous person or persons. No copy of the original complaint has been released, not even a redacted one, and there is no proof that a written complaint even existed. Without identification of the person(s) making the complaint, it is impossible to check reliability or to identify ulterior motives. The secrecy implies that there is something to be ashamed of. [Evidence of corruption.]

2) Supported Status
Supported Status exists to allow the Board to take over associations that have failed. Usually its members will have lost interest and it will have no funds. None of these applied to NSCA. Supported Status was imposed simply to take control. It still continues more than a year after the alleged miscreants have been removed from office. The only reason appears to be that a large number of members are resisting what they believe are injustices. [Evidence of corruption.]

3) The Council Candidates
At the Executive Council meeting in February 2011, two months before the matter had been heard in London, David Dodd (the Board’s Representative) tried to get approval for a list of Unitary Authority and Town and Parish candidates from which Carl Francis-Pester’s name had been removed. The members refused to vote for the entire list. The AGM on 25th March 2011 was the last moment when approval could be given and, with no alternative, Dodd gave way, allowing Carl to be a candidate. [Evidence of corruption.]

4) The Gold Judgement of April 2011
The judgement was made by Lord Gold and other members of the disciplinary system at CCHQ in London. Mr Brian Hanson, a previous chairman of NSCA, is a close associate of these people and has held a long standing grudge against Carl. It is difficult to believe that he has not briefed his London colleagues against Carl and the North Somerset Association. [If there is any doubt about that, please see the letter written by Mr Hanson on 4th April 2005 (BH2005.pdf); it gives an insight into his opinions and character.] It seems more than probable that the situation at CCHQ is not without bias. [Evidence of corruption.]

4a) The vehicle
Lord Gold’s judgement of April 2011 said that the loss of money on a motor vehicle was a significant offence. In 2010 a minibus was purchased to use at the election and at other times. It did its job, but later developed faults and was sold at a loss of £3500. This sum was about £1000 greater than the cost to hire a similar vehicle. The decision to buy rather than hire was a reasonable management decision – it was not an offence at all. The elevation of this event into an offence is stand-alone proof of corruption without the other items listed in this paper. [Conclusive evidence of corruption.]
The decision to purchase the bus had been taken by the entire management team, but Carl and Chris were the only ones charged with it. [Evidence of corruption.]

4b) The office
The accommodation comprises a small, first-floor office which could be accessed from the stair landing together with a second office which can be accessed only through the first office or, alternatively, from the tenant’s space at its other side. Liam Fox had rented the first of these and the second had been rented until April 2010 by the tenant who gave it up at that time and their door was sealed. The second office thus became “landlocked” in the sense that it could only be accessed through Liam’s office.

Carl had used Liam’s office sporadically when Liam did not require it, but in April 2010 he entered an agreement with fellow officers to rent the landlocked office for his own business use.

The complaint was that the agreement was not sufficiently formal and that no rental had yet been paid by autumn 2010. Peter Wright told Carl not to make any rectifications, so he was prevented from making any payment after the investigation had started.

Had the concern for office rental been genuine, the remedy would have been to insist on a more formal lease and payment of arrears. Instead of this, Carl & Chris were dismissed from office (rather than suspended), prohibited from entering the building, the locks were changed and Carl was not allowed to collect his belongings and papers. [Evidence of corruption.]

All of these actions were taken before the disciplinary hearing before Lord Gold. The sentence was given and carried out before the trial! [Evidence of corruption.]

To this day, the landlocked office remains unlet and neither the Party Board’s Representative, nor anyone else, has shown the slightest concern about that. And we are asked to believe that the action was taken out of deep concern for the Association’s income? [Evidence of corruption.]

At the AGM in March 2011, the members, by overwhelming majority, voted to give Carl the free use of an office for one year. The Board Representative, David Dodd, tried to overrule the motion, but as it was a direction to the Trustees, he was not entitled to do so.

4c) Fiefdom
Carl and Chris were accused of running the association like their own fiefdom (Fiefdom is “the property or fee granted to a vassal for his maintenance by his lord in return for service”.) I suppose they meant they were treating it like they owned it. It is very difficult to find any objective evidence of this, and none was offered. Certainly they managed the Association, as they were elected to do, but no moneys were used personally and they submitted themselves to annual election.
During the disciplinary hearing, referring to their term of office, Carl used the phrase “when we took over”, instead of “when we were first elected”. This wording was pounced on with enthusiasm as confirmation of the claim of “fiefdom”. [Evidence of corruption.]

5) The Association Complaint against Peter Wright
Peter Wright (the Area Chairman) prepared the case against Carl & Chris on behalf of the Party Board. At the Executive Council of 22 July 2011 a list of complaints about Peter Wright’s handling of the investigation and enforcement were formally approved. A dossier with supporting evidence was prepared (about 1cm thick) and was sent recorded delivery to CCHQ in London. Royal Mail provided evidence of its delivery. After some weeks, enquiries were made, but it had disappeared. A second copy, complete with all attachments was prepared and sent recorded delivery. Six months passed and after prompting it was returned as being considered without merit. It is clear that the treatment given to a complaint depends who has made it, more than its substance. [Evidence of corruption.]

6) The Second Disciplinary Procedure of May-June 2012
While Association representatives attended a meeting in June 2012 with Andrew Feldman (Party Board Chairman) and Norman Green in London, they were astonished to learn that a further disciplinary process was being planned against Carl. The pretexts were his late payment of council tax and his decision to omit a non-mandatory CRB check, as he was doing no work with children or vulnerable adults. He had also written a letter expressing suspicion that CCHQ were trying to get their hands on the Association property – something which most members felt, reinforced by the fact that they had confiscated the deeds without telling the elected officers.
The NSCA delegation made it clear that no agreement could be reached if witch hunting did not stop and Andrew Feldman agreed to have the action withdrawn. But it remains astonishing that whoever is behind this is coming back for a second try. [Evidence of corruption.]

7) The New Anonymous Letters
In July, after the decision by Andrew Feldman to suspend the second action against Carl, a number of new anonymous letters were sent to local newspapers and one to the Association Treasurer, with information about a debt of Carl’s, alleged to be unpaid. It is clear that his hidden enemies are still at work. The letter to the Association Treasurer included a copy of a search report which (probably inadvertently) bore the email address of the purchaser. The address was that of Mr Brian Hanson, the long-time critic of Carl’s! [Evidence of corruption.]

8) The audit of election expenses
In early 2012, the Party Board dispatched auditors to examine the Association records with reference to permissible election expenses in 2010, but the result has not been disclosed to the Association. It is suspected that this was a further attempt to attach blame to Carl in connection with the minibus loss, but the silence may mean that nothing interesting was found. We do not know. [Probable evidence of corruption.]

9) The Trustees.
The legal advice which has been most expensively obtained clearly states that the Party Board does not have the right to seize the Trustees’ bank account, nor to dictate who shall serve as Trustees. But they have carried out these acts, and continue to attempt them. The current Trustees have done nothing more wrong than to point out the limitation of the Board’s powers and to investigate the bank’s illegal transfer of banking rights to the Board representative. As a result, the trustees have had their membership suspended and have been put on a disciplinary procedure (offences as yet undefined). [Evidence of corruption.]
The trustees have also received threatening legal letters and have been advised to take legal advice on behalf of the trust. This has had to be done at very great cost to the Trust funds. About £20,000 of the money raised by our supporters has been lost, about two-thirds of our reserves, and an equivalent amount has probably been spent at CCHQ. Andrew Feldman was most vehement against one of the trustees who had used (in his estimation) “unmeasured language”. Can it be imagined that the perpetrators of this catalogue of corruption are offended at a response in “unmeasured language”?

10) And here’s Another Thing
When difficult-to-refute arguments are presented against the action taken against Chris and Carl, they are often countered with further unrelated bad things that they are supposed to have done. For example, on a recent occasion David Dodd said that they had run the Association in isolation and had not given help to neighbouring Conservative associations. Carl, on hearing this, gave a list of many occasions when help had been given, but this misses the point. If a trial on the first charges has been corrupt, it cannot make it OK to produce a new piece of hearsay. If the real offence had been something else, then that is what should have been charged and examined at the time. [Evidence of corruption.]

Conclusion
How much more evidence could anyone require that the Conservative Party’s Disciplinary Procedures are corrupt? Some of the evidences above are stronger than others, but taken together they are overwhelming. The minibus issue on its own is enough to prove corruption.

It is clear that the disciplinary procedure and the withdrawal of membership are not being exercised under the principles of justice, but are simply being used as tools for favouring cronies, enforcing control and silencing criticism.

There is something rotten at the centre of the Conservative Party. We can never be deserving of the electorate’s confidence while this persists. The most loyal and honourable thing any Conservative supporter can do is to stand up resolutely against this corruption. That is more important than anything else we might do. To accept all this and “move on” would be utterly shameful.

[Note: I sent a draft of this note to Mr Norman Green, the Board member acting as contact point on the NSCA controversy with a request for corrections of factual errors, but he has not offered any. He responded instead with the arrogant bluster we are coming to expect from the Board. No humility; no admission that things might have been handled better; only the demand to bow to their will or remain in Supported Status indefinitely.]

Don Cameron 14th August 2012