Thread: Barnrook scuttles off like a baby

Originally Posted by charlie peace

M Barnbrook scuttled away like the spoilt self promoting baby he is because he was upset about being called a waste of space by Nick Griffin.
Mick you plank its about time you grew a pair and stopped crying when Nick tells you the truth you pretender.

In all fairness, and while I have no reason to defend Michael Barnbrook, he participated quite vocally in the meeting until asked by Chairman Geoff Dickens to act as a tellor counting the votes, a task he fulfilled quite competently until he left the meeting mid afternoon, by which time it had seemed as though all of the motions proposed would be bulldozed through by Nick Griffin's massive block of proxy votes.

The meeting was a confrontation of 'the big beasts' of the BNP and proceeded as follows;

Arthur Kemp fired the opening salvos as the meeting started, asserting that there had been no consultation process with the members regarding the constitutional reforms agreed at the last party conference and that the premise for the GMM was therefore invalid and unconstitutional. He asserted further that the motions put forward were substancially different to those agreed at the party conference and that Nick Griffin had broken his promise to the members.

Geoff Dickens then informed the meeting that under the current BNP constitution, Nick Griffin has the power to make unilateral changes without reference to anyone else and that therefore, irrespective of the rights or wrongs of Arthur's assertions, the meeting was constitutional and would proceed as planned.

In the voting that followed, the members present at the meeting who represented the hard core of the party's activists from accross the country, were split roughly 60:40, with the majority in opposition to the motions proposed by Nick Griffin. The 200 activists present were however, dismayed to find that the proxy voting system introduced by Nick Griffin as a new and novel feature to BNP meetings gave Nick Griffin a block vote of 500+ votes that he proceeded to use to negate the majority against him at the meeting.

Despite this, the reformers continued to argue their case, with significant contributions to the debates by Arthur Kemp and the other 'big beasts' of the BNP; Andrew Brons; Richard Edmonds; John Walker; and Kevin Scott, all of whom voiced opposition to the constitutional validity of the meeting and the motions proposed. Speaking in favour of the motions were Clive Jefferson, Adam Walker and some other of the 'novice' Regional Organisers, appointed recently by Nick Griffin after high profile sackings during the recent ructions within the party.

As the day drew to a close however, and despite his overwhelming block vote, which could have been used to push through all of the motions with impunity had he wished to be completely intransigent, Nick Griffin realised that to do this would secure for him the constitutional vicory he sought, but would be a pyrrhic victory, in that it would leave the reformers with little option but to split the party, taking the majority of the activists with them to form a new party. Therefore, following a particularly spirited denunciation of the days proceedings by Arthur Kemp, Nick Griffin agreed that the substantive part of Motion 2 dealing with the composition and character of the new National Executive would afterall be changed to bring it largely into line with the constitutional reforms proposed by Arthur and endorsed by the party conference.

This revised Motion 2 was therefore carried with the overwhelming support of all of those present and therefore while there is some justification for supporters to claim that Nick Griffin with his proxy block vote carried the day, the reality is that the crucial factor incorporated into Arthur Kemp's proposed constitutional reforms was passed, resulting in a significant shift of power within the party, away from the chairman and towards the party's activists.

The most significant and ironic factor of the day however was the zeal with which Nick Griffin positioned himself as the 'democratic' champion of the less active, 'armchair' nationalists of the party, thereby providing the pretext for his unilateral introduction of a sytem of proxy block voting that would enable him to ride roughshod over the wishes of the majority of the the party's activists. I can remember just a few short years ago, during a period when the party was making great strides electorally, that Nick Griffin recognised the disproportionate contribution to the party's success that came from the activists and proposed the 'Voting Members' system in order to ensure that the party could never be derailed by a less well informed and half-heartedly committed, armchair membership. It appears that in light of the party's flagging performance under his leadership recently, and the consequent decline in his popularity among the party's activists, Nick Griffin has undergone a complete volte face on this issue.

Originally Posted by Henry Palfrey

The system won't allow me to give Lou a rep for that, but I'm grateful for a measured and sensible report.

Ditto

Originally Posted by Henry Palfrey

The question is, what now?

The challenge I would guess.