The post you are reporting:
I have had the following statement in from Andy Cooper...
Andy was previously chairman of UKIP locally.
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Hi Paul
I wonder if you would be so good as to post the following on the thread about Vic chucking it all in...I don't especially mind if you'd rather not, but I do have the facts about what is truth and what is not. Thanks.
"With regard to all that is being said here by Vic and Alexander, can I just give the definitive - and truthful - story about what has happened. Perhaps the mud slinging might stop then!
A short while back, UKIP HQ organised a public meeting in Charing Village Hall for the good and great of UKIP's Kentish army to rally and recruit new members: the fact that it was held midweek in a tiny village hall without much in the way of public transport; a goodly number of us felt that UKIP could have set their sights a little higher than a remote village hall that could seat a maximum of 150 people and expressed our concerns to this effect direct to UKIP HQ. Further to this, Vic had been trying to get Nigel Farage to set aside some time to spend in Dover as a guest of UKIP Dover & Deal's committee. Not one email was responded to, criticisms were ignored and a highly contentious email received from one K.Farage (any relation, one wonders?) which got up the collective noses of the local branch committee.
The actions of HQ, which were compounded by a dictate saying that every ward seat had to be contested in the May elections, irrespective of the feelings of 90% of our members that UKIP policies had nothing to do with local politics, just served to alienate local branch UKIP members from the national party. Insult was added to injury by that dictate being accompanied by a statement that no money would be forthcoming in trying to help with leaflet costs and the usual election expenses; comparison was made to the larger national parties - would the Tories and the Labour Party likewise expect to contest every ward without offering a penny to help with costs? As a result of this and other national party issues, our Treasurer resigned, a committee member announced that he wouldn't be renewing his membership and would therefore be ineligible to remain on the committee, yet another announced that he was going to live in the Far East and lastly that one more committee member was selling his house in Deal and leaving the area. This left the committee with just two members - Vic + Mr AN Other - and a huge problem in getting a quorum with which to meet the regulations of our constitution.
Alexander is quite right when he says that he is a member of UKIP, if he has renewed his membership in 2011. However, what Vic is referring to is a decision taken a year or so back by the full committee to exclude Alexander as a member of the committee: Alexander was seen as a loose cannon, doing his own thing without reference to the committee and without the authority of the committee. His actions were viewed as contrary to the wishes of the local branch UKIP party and deliberately inflammatory; for this reason he was excluded. In one of his posts he says that he has never seen Vic voted in as Chairman, and that is also true. It is true only because he did not attend the AGM in Blakes last November at which time Vic was elected as Chairman unopposed; had he attended that meeting - it is not true to say that he was barred from attending - one might have some sympathy for his claims that Vic cannot '"affront" any opponent (methinks the word 'affront' is the wrong word in this context). However, in this matter, Vic has done nothing wrong apart from his usual fault of taking too much on his plate, and going public with something that should have remained in camera.
I believe that UKIP has only itself to blame for all this; it is true to say that the party HQ couldn't organise the proverbial drink-up in a brewery and that all local initiatives have failed for a multitude of reasons, the largest being that there seems to be only an interest in raising the profile of Nigel Farage, at all other costs. Whilst my belief that the lack of a referendum over continued British membership is a criminal neglect of many voters' beliefs, it is patently obvious to me that UKIP is not the party to be able to force Government to hold any such referendum and I have accordingly not renewed my own membership.
One thing that Alexander has quite rightly identified is that the correct procedures for winding up the local branch have not been put in place, and that is something that will be corrected at the next committee meeting. One or two members have requested a public meeting of all UKIP members be held before the decision to wind up the local branch is taken; I believe that is the democratic and only appropriate way to go forward from things stand at the moment.
I hope this clarifies matters and will put an end to the name calling."
Kindest regards,
Andrew R Cooper