Grassroots letters & reply

Millennium3 · 23-11-2007, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brian lee

The mistake in most organisations is to assume that the best people get to the top. That is rarely the case. Unfortunately those people who do get to the top by all kinds of ways believe that they have got there by their superior intellect and knowledge. That being the case, anyone who does not accord with their ideas and suggests other ideas is branded as a trouble maker. If the leader is poor the upstart will be marginalised instead of being welcomed.

It is not a question of being a Farage hater. It is a question of Farage not having the capacity for being a good leader. Hence he will surround himself with yes men so that he is unchallenged.

Did those who organised 'Grass Roots', however competant they are, seriously thing that Farage would take any notice of them?

A few years ago I knew John De Roeck. He was no Ego tripper and not in UKIP for personal gain. When, as Party Treasurer he dared to act as a Treasurer should do he was sacked. The Party Secretary who defended him was marginalised. One of the ways this was achieved was to move the UKIP office from London to Birmingham, well out of his travelling distance. Gerard Batten opposed this move. There was a lot of spin about Birmingham being more suitable. It wasn't.

The history of UKIP is full of competant people at different levels in the organisation being ignored and marginalised. When they eventually left the Party the standard retort was that they were useless trouble makers and good riddance to them. When I left I got off lightly because my contribution was obviously considered to be insignificant, except believe it or not by Piers Merchant who expressed his regret. All I got was to be called a traitor by one of my closest colleagues.

The reason 'Veritas' and 'One London' were set up was due to the failure of the UKIP management to deal with internal matters intelligently. Kilroy Silk was a problem, but he could have been dealt before he created mayhem in the Party. In the run up to the 2004 European Election, Farage and Lott decided to deal with internal problems by sending out solicitor's letters to 21 activists. Can you imagine anything so stupid? They didn't think so.

This makes a lot of sense - obviously the less capable a leader is the more they will wish to surround themselves with 'yes' men to protect them from the more able.

If the leader is the most capable in the organisation they will fear no one therein, for they know that they can deal with anyone in a direct encounter.

However, in the case of UKIP, this is complicated by the, almost certain, fact that its leaders have become professional politicians and, unlike the members, have no wish for Britain to withdraw from the EU as this would mean an end to their careers. Extra conflict arises because the actions of the leaders often seem crazy if their aim was to get out of the EU.

I will add that anyone who is looking for a career as a professional politician within the EU should subjugate themselves to and stick like glue to NF because he is every chance he will be able to deliver some more lucrative posts.

Anthony Butcher · 23-11-2007, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by B.A.Ware

As one of the founding members of the Lechlade group C steam is exactly right in what he has posted. The group was open to all who wanted to come and this included The Ukip hierarchy and when they did come they did not receive a hostile reception, this is hardly the way a subversive group would work within the party.

One more thing that you can add to your list. before the leadership election, I wrote a document about what needed to be fixed in the party. This was picked up by one of Farage's supporters (a member of this forum), and many of the points made it into Farage's manifesto for his leadership bid, often using my exact wording.

This may just have been triangulation, but it must mean that some of what we were saying was accepted as truth by the leadership.

douglas denny · 23-11-2007, 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by B.A.Ware

As one of the founding members of the Lechlade group C steam is exactly right in what he has posted. The group was open to all who wanted to come and this included The Ukip hierarchy and when they did come they did not receive a hostile reception, this is hardly the way a subversive group would work within the party.

If any one wanted to know what the group was about our aims were posted on a Lechlade website one of which was to SUPPORT Roger knapeman who was the current leader at the time, again hardly a group trying to be subversive.

Here are some of the aims we were trying to achieve

Produce a world class website with a separate area for members.

(Something Nigel promised in his election address and in my opinion failed to deliver)

Produce a youth movement (Youth kip)

(Something Nigel promised in his election address) Who eventually got a movement going; Del and he too was a Lechlade member.

Start policy groups
(Something Nigel promised in his election address)

Produce policy papers and present them to the NEC.
(Something Nigel promised in his election address)

Promote Ukip as a positive force instead of telling people what we were always against; tell them what we stood for.

(Nigel’s quote from a TV interview when he became leader, as I remember it; People know what we are against we are going to tell people what we are for.)

Start a by-election fighting fund and team of activists

Start research groups

There are more but like C steam says its all water under the bridge now, strange a lot of what Nigel has promised seems to be what the Lechlade group were recommending talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water.

It seems to me a lot of the above is actually being delivered or is in the process of change/implementation in the party.

Perhaps a lot of the ideas have 'filtered down' - as they do if they are good ones.

What is not realised generally is that the changes as above take far more time to become reality in a big organisation, and especially in a political organisation, than might seem reasonable. The website is an example.

There are too few people to do the jobs so everything is prioritised, and the immediate priorities overwhelm the lesser ones, (and new immediate priorities crop-up constantly) so something like the website which you might think could be dealt with in minutes - takes years.

DED.

douglas denny · 23-11-2007, 05:43 PM

Quote:

quote brian lee: The mistake in most organisations is to assume that the best people get to the top. That is rarely the case. .....

Absolutely true, but the fact is you cannot have any quality control of the 'people at the top' in an organisation like UKIP. They are all volunteers (excepting the MEPs who are a 'special' case).

Quote:

Unfortunately those people who do get to the top by all kinds of ways believe that they have got there by their superior intellect and knowledge. That being the case, anyone who does not accord with their ideas and suggests other ideas is branded as a trouble maker. .....

I don't think this is true. It might be for one or two but is not genarally the case I find.

Quote:

If the leader is poor the upstart will be marginalised instead of being welcomed.

Upstarts are marginalised anyway - good or bad leader.

Quote:

It is not a question of being a Farage hater. It is a question of Farage not having the capacity for being a good leader. Hence he will surround himself with yes men so that he is unchallenged.

There is a serious flaw in this. It underlies the thinking all the time which you seem to have that Farage "surrounds himself" with "yes" men.

He does not. He has NO control over the people who are on the NEC - the members elect them! And the NEC ultimately controls what is done in the party. Farage knows full well that he can do nothing without the consent of the NEC.
The Leader has a lot of clout in what he says and wants of course, because people are predisposed to want to assist rather than dissent - but your assumption that the Leader gets what he wants all the time is very definitley erroneous I can assure you.
Not when I am around anyway - and not with the other difficult beggars too......

DED.
-

B.A.Ware · 23-11-2007, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by douglas denny

It seems to me a lot of the above is actually being delivered or is in the process of change/implementation in the party.

Perhaps a lot of the ideas have 'filtered down' - as they do if they are good ones.

What is not realised generally is that the changes as above take far more time to become reality in a big organisation, and especially in a political organisation, than might seem reasonable. The website is an example.

There are too few people to do the jobs so everything is prioritised, and the immediate priorities overwhelm the lesser ones, (and new immediate priorities crop-up constantly) so something like the website which you might think could be dealt with in minutes - takes years.

DED.

My point being if the party adopted the ideas of the Lechlade group why did they perceive us as a party within a party and label us as trouble makers.

I do believe the Lechlade group influenced the party but why oh why didn't the leadership embrace their ideas and use some of these highly talented people to implement them.

Yes i know it takes time to get these things up and running but the likes of Alex and Anthony set up several websites in less than a month, our new website took 11 months and it is just another anti-EU website in my opinion.

My only conclusion for the way the Lechlade group was treated by the leadership was we were perceived as some sort of threat to the leadership which i guarantee you we wasn't.

Like i said in my earlier posts if i had a group of willing volunteers who were prepared to spend time,money and energy helping my cause the very least i would do is spend a few hours talking to them and seeing if we could use their ideas and their skills to further the parties aims.

Good leaders listen

brian lee · 23-11-2007, 07:45 PM

I forgot to say that when Farage sent out the 21 solicitor's letters he consulted beforehand by phone with the members of a sub-comittee of the NEC called the European Election Committee which had no power in the matter. He then presented it as a fait accompli to the NEC.

When he was elected leader he announced his management team to the Conference before it was approved by the NEC.

Two examples of taking the p*** out of the NEC which I knew about.

I know that at least two members of the NEC resigned because they felt they were just treated as surplus baggage.

However, the matter in hand is, where do the 'Grass roots' go from here?

douglas denny · 23-11-2007, 07:45 PM

Quote:

quote B.A.Ware My point being if the party adopted the ideas of the Lechlade group why did they perceive us as a party within a party and label us as trouble makers.

Because you had some serious troublemakers within.
Just one is enough if they are perceived as a very bad troublemaker.

Quote:

I do believe the Lechlade group influenced the party.......

I do believe you are right.

Quote:

My only conclusion for the way the Lechlade group was treated by the leadership was we were perceived as some sort of threat to the leadership which i guarantee you we wasn't.

No don't think so. The Leader can just ignor potential troublemakers and probably does I expect. Some wheat is thrown out with the chaf though always.

Quote:

Like i said in my earlier posts if i had a group of willing volunteers who were prepared to spend time,money and energy helping my cause the very least i would do is spend a few hours talking to them and seeing if we could use their ideas and their skills to further the parties aims.
Good leaders listen

Agreed.

DED

B.A.Ware · 24-11-2007, 03:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by douglas denny

Because you had some serious troublemakers within.
Just one is enough if they are perceived as a very bad troublemaker.
DED

DD on this occasion i think you are wrong the original group was solely committed to the parties move forward but we weren't naive we knew we would have people that were were going to use us to create problems we were full aware of GLW and to our benefit he slatted us originally then turned on a sixpence and backed us even to the extent of mentioning me in one of his emails (a spat on here with Bellatrix).

DD like me you like to shoot from the hip i am pretty much the same whatever people say i still like the fact you can come on here and say your piece.

I'm sure if we meet our minds may never meet but our respect would

C_steam · 24-11-2007, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by douglas denny

Because you had some serious troublemakers within.

Really!!!

The original core was:-
Alex
Anthony
BAware
David
Linda
Matt
Myself
Roger Gough
UKIP Man

Joined shortly after by Del, Aardvark, Chik and co.

(apol's if i missed anyone, or I've got the timing wrong)

I can feel a poll coming on as to which of the above -at that time - were 'serious troublemakers' - by whose judgement Douglas?

Remember this was prior to the NEC elections, and the reason that THREE of the above were elected to the NEC was purely because the membership saw lechlade as a breath of fresh air.

Not bad for a bunch of people in a pub.

Aardvark · 24-11-2007, 02:10 PM

...and still waiting for you to get your round in.

24-11-2007, 02:10 PM	#70 (permalink)
Aardvark Moderator Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Oxonia Posts: 4,256	...and still waiting for you to get your round in. __________________ When in Woking do as the Wokes do. "I do not wish to form my opinions by thoughtlessly quoting others; I wish others to support their opinions by sensibly quoting me." Paul Wesson (Aardvark) 13th April 2008

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23-11-2007, 07:45 PM	#66 (permalink)
brian lee Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: South Essex Posts: 618	I forgot to say that when Farage sent out the 21 solicitor's letters he consulted beforehand by phone with the members of a sub-comittee of the NEC called the European Election Committee which had no power in the matter. He then presented it as a fait accompli to the NEC. When he was elected leader he announced his management team to the Conference before it was approved by the NEC. Two examples of taking the p*** out of the NEC which I knew about. I know that at least two members of the NEC resigned because they felt they were just treated as surplus baggage. However, the matter in hand is, where do the 'Grass roots' go from here?