Wednesday, September 03, 2008

UKIP's "Zimbabwean" Election Sees Robin Page Barred

Robin Page, the Cambridgeshire farmer and presenter of One Man and His Dog and one of UKIP’s most high profile members, has been prevented from standing as a UKIP candidate at next year’s European Elections for East Anglia – despite finishing third on UKIP’s list last time round.

“It is ridiculous”, says Page. “I did exactly what I was told by UKIP staff – yet I was the one who got penalized and not the staff. It is clear that there are people at the top of UKIP who did not want me to stand in case I was voted to the top of the list. In my view I have been well and truly “stitched up”. It has, it seems, been a Banana Republic election – apparently having much in common with a Zimbabwean election. I even knew what the result would be before one vote had been cast. There is so much sleaze in UKIP at the moment with people being investigated by the police and OLAF (the European Anti-Fraud Office) for a number of alleged offences – I think the hierarchy wanted to prevent me from standing in case I won a place at Brussels and saw how some of them behave. It is a disgrace; the whole thing has been run like a Zimbabwean election – even the UKIP Returning Officer – former Tory MP Piers Merchant is appalled – but claims he cannot do anything about it: “I seem not to have been given the powers to call the election off”, he says, “but shall be preparing a full report in which I will highlight several areas of inadequacy and also cases such as yours, which need a proper investigation”.


Page further alleges that because of the flawed election process several local UKIP branches are refusing to help with next year’s European Elections. He adds:
“UKIP won seats at the last European Elections promising to fight European sleaze and corruption. Sadly some of those elected seem to have enjoyed the European Gravy Train so much that large dollops of sleaze could well have rubbed off on them. It is a tragedy – UKIP had a real chance to make a difference this time round – the electorate needs UKIP. Instead UKIP has become ineffective and, through the antics of some MEPs, it has become a laughing stock. One MEP is reported to have said: “Robin Page must be stopped” – and I have been. I am today suggesting to those two UKIP members who topped the flawed UKIP poll for the Eastern Region, that if they have real integrity they will withdraw from the European elections until a proper re-r un for ALL UKIP candidates is held”.
UPDATE: UKIP has hit back and sent me this statement from Christopher Gill, the overseer of the election process...

"Let us be absolutely clear about one thing - the reason that Robin Page is not a candidate for UKIP at the forthcoming EP election is because he failed to get his application in on time in spite of being given an extended deadline in which to do so. As a potential candidate it was entirely his responsibility to ensure that all relevant paperwork was deposited with Head Office on time - it was not!

"Robin Page can fantasise about conspiracies for as long as he likes but nothing alters the fact that, in spite of having been granted extra time, he excluded himself from the selection process by his own inaction. Robin Page had exactly the same amount of notice as all other candidates to get his application in by the close of nominations on 16th May but the plain fact of the matter is that he failed to do so, notwithstanding the leeway that he was given in which to do so.

UKIP Press Officer Tim Worstall adds: "The truth of the matter is that we gave Robin Page a fortnight of extra time, time unavailable to other candidates, such was our regard for him and our interest in his standing. That he failed to make use of it is something we regret but not, in our opinion, something that justifies his intemperate accusations of today."

Girls, girls!

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is the problem. I would like to go to Europe or Westminster to fight corruption and greed but would I be seduced by the chauffer driven cars, 24 hour a day bodyguards to be used as servants, unlimited expenses (and no need to forge a receipt) lots of pretty girls wandering about, 1st Class travel everywhere and unlimited invitations to all sorts of entertainments? To xxxxxxx right I would. I'd even run for a second term.
freedom to prosper

Anonymous said...

what actually happened?

haddock said...

I blogged about the candidate list about a month ago.
http://haddock-somethingfishy.blogspot.com/2008/08/just-like-others.html

as I said, just like the rest.
warning on language used :-)

Anonymous said...

Ironic. Member of UKIP and spells realise the US way- realize.

Brian said...

Robin Page is a thoroughly decent chap, a writer, publisher, farmer, conservationist, former local councillor, a peasant and proud of it who any party should be falling over themselves to have as a candidate. The problem is that as a lifelong farmer he knows the habits and mindsets of sheep and cattle inside out which puts party bureaucracy at a disdvantage to him.

Anonymous said...

I'm slightly surprised you've retailed this blather. UKIP, bunch of goons that they are, have internal rules, just like us. And one of their simple rules includes: a cut-off date by which applications to be a candidate must be received. Page, who, we're told, lived and breathed to be a UKIP candidate, wasn't capable of getting his application in on time.

Other than Page's being a moron (for which there is plentiful other evidence), what exactly is the 'story' here?

Little Black Sambo said...

OUP uses "ize" in "realize", CUP uses "ise". Both equally acceptable in English-English.

Anonymous said...

UKIP MEPs worried that their trips to Strasbourg -- for which they are entitled to pick up first-class expenses irrespective of method of travel -- via dirt-cheap Ryanair flights to Baden-Baden will be rumbled?

Anonymous said...

To think I voted for these people in 2004!

Anonymous said...

Small earth tremor hits Wales. Nobody hurt.

What is the point of even reporting this?

UKIP are a busted flush. From the moment they let Robert Vynyl Silk, (Sunburst Orange), into their ranks they were finished as a force in politics.

Even if Brown - or his successor - runs the General Election in June next year, UKIP will take so few votes as to make not a jot of difference to the reuslt because, like the Lib-Dems, they have only had the success they have had in the last few years because they have been the repository of "protest" votes that have not gone to the Tories as the Tories were seen as hopeless and having no chance of winning.

Now the game is once again afoot and the electorate wish to give the Government as hard a kicking as possible, those vote will go to the Conservatives.

I predict fewer than 10 Labour MEPs after June 09.

Anonymous said...

Do remind us how the Tories elect their MEPs Iain.........

Iain Dale said...

Badly, is the answer. I have been highly critical of the way that was conducted. Two wrongs...

John M Ward said...

Interesting mix of comments already.

I agree that all candidates must abide by the rules set down, including timetables and deadlines, in order not to have claims of favouritism" or other bias levelled against them, and to avoid messing-up the selection procedure (I know, having been recently involved in candidate selection).

However, I also agree that UKIP are going nowhere, as one of their founder members has said to me and others on a number of occasions (Craig Mackinlay, a really good fellow by the way, whom I respect greatly; and who is one of our Conservative councillors here in Medway, Kent).

If anyone wants to stick with them, that is their choice; but the party is going nowhere, which is why Craig came back to the Conservatives a few years ago.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Nice one Tim.

strapworld said...

basil said 11.01am "And one of their simple rules includes: a cut-off date by which applications to be a candidate must be received"
====
Having had a very short time within this very nasty party and witnessed how they 'manipulate' things, such as elections for the executive!etc. I am with Robin Page. He was misled, obviously. He is a man of honour and would have made a quite extraordinary MEP. But UKIP do not want that, do they.

They enjoy all the trappings attached to being MEP's. They do not want anyone 'rocking the boat'

and as for John Moss saiud at 12.03 Robert Kilroy Silk's moral compass is as solid as Robin Page's. Ukip wanted him (them) for the publicity but they wanted to control both men.

Farage has got what he wanted. He is now a big fish in a goldfish bowl, with a big voice as well - (what did father tell me about empty barrels?)

Ukip is finished. They will not attain the success they had in the last Euro Elections.

I am so sorry that a true anti EU gentleman, Christopher Gill, has got himself mixed up with this rabble.

Anonymous said...

Corruption by MEPs is endemic throughout all parties, as the record shows, and based on what I have read, UKIP is amongst, if not the, most honest.

Much as I like Robin Page, Chris Gill is a man or proven integrity, one of the Maastricht Rebels and recent Chairman of the Freedom Association and I therefore believe his explanation.

Come June 4th, the ever- increasing withdrawalist majority in this country will be faced with a choice between Labour, already dead in the water and europhile. the LibDems who are even more Europhile than Giscard d-Estaing, the Conservatives in whose forthcoming Conference there appears to be no mention whatever of the existence of the EU, let alone the threat it represents to our freedom(s), the Greens who are an europhile busted flush, the untrained pole-cat BNP and UKIP, the ONLY party that is telling the truth about the EU and has been doing for 14 years.
Only the tiny majority of political anoraks will even be aware of this sort of skirmishing and in-fighting come June 10th, the great majority will see only ONE opportunity to vote clealry and unequivocally for what they want - to leave the EU and become again a free country ruling ourselves.

Because of the tide in national politics, and their (current) promise to reject Lisbon, the Conservatives should expect to do well, but UKIP will be in there slogging it out for first place. The others might as well not bother

Steve Horgan said...

anonymous at 12:36. You believe so much in your beloved UKIP that you won't even publicly identify yourself as a supporter. Leaving aside 'political anoraks', who by the way are the people who actually run election campaigns, have you been looking at the numbers of votes UKIP have been getting in real elections? In Crewe and Nantwich they got 922, against 20539 for the Conservatives. In Council elections getting to three figures is becoming an achievement. This is not exactly a tide of popular support for your one-trick pony.

Anonymous said...

Well come 2009 and the Euro elections I won't be voting for Cameron.

Oh dear, if I can't trust UKIP to send out the message that I want to get out of Europe, I will have to vote BNP.

Anonymous said...

"Robin Page, the Cambridgeshire farmer and presenter of One Man and His Dog and one of UKIP’s most high profile members"

That half-sentence alone had me in hysterics. Says it all about UKIP today, really.

haddock said...

I will still campaign for UKIP next spring and spent the time dropping off leaflets and chivying people to vote in the Euro elections ( which will be treated as the referendum we were denied ).
We all, I think, realise... wonks, anoraks and normal people, that it matters not a toss who represents us in Brussels, nor indeed if anyone bothered to turn up there at all; measures are decided upon by people other than the MEPs who then dutifully rubber-stamp the laws in a voting frenzy with little or no debate.
Why anyone considers Cameron to anti EU is party to information that I have never seen. The voting system used changes the complexion of voting when the list comes into play; it is not a Lab/Tory/Lib battle it will be a straight yes/no on EU membership.

Anonymous said...

Well anyone here who thinks that the Tories will save us from EU is living in fastasy world.

Plus can i point out that aleast UKIP let the members choose the candidates for the Euro elections unlike the Tories who make sure that pro-EU money grabbing candidates get on the list and not some anti-EU people.

Anonymous said...

2,500 Post Offices are to close, why? Just look at EU directives 97/67/EC and 2003/39/EC this is where it started and has been supported by the LibLabCon. UKIP has been the only party to actively campaign on this issue.

UKIP is the only party to oppose the AGW scam which again is supported by the LibLabCon despite overwhelming scientific evidence to show that any global warming is a natural event.

Does anyone understand why this country is the only western economy now in recession (OECD), why prices are rocketing out of control and why petrol prices are coming down everywhere except this country.

Remember it was the Conservatives who delivered us into the EEC, EC and finally the EU and they will not take us out. Many Conservatives are now joining UKIP and the voters will begin to wake up to the fact that the LibLabCon have nothing new to offer, just more of the same. Just watch our conference this weekend in Bournemouth and see what real politics is all about.

Lastly our Prospective MEP candidates were chosen by hustings all over the country and were then voted for by a postal ballot. How have the others chosen their candidates?

The Pub Consultancy Service said...

It is unfortunate that Robin Page didn't get on the list, but as has been said, the rules are clear.

One has to say that the way he and another wannabee MEP, John West are behaving because they weren't selected would lead me to feel grateful. The last thing UKIP needs are another lot of gravy train MEP's.

Robert Feal-Martinez
Chairman and PPC Swindon UKIP.

Anonymous said...

JM Ward,

I too know Craig Mackinlay and in fact joined UKIP when it was formed having helped him when he stood as an independent in 1992.

I have become disillusioned with the infighting of UKIP and allowed my membership to lapse.

However I cannot see the Conservative Party ever becoming truly eurosceptic despite Craig thinking that it might when he joined. For example Cameron reneged on withdrawing the MEPs from the EPP. That hardly inspires confidence!

True moderate Eurosceptics are now effectively disenfranchised because of the pro EU liblab con. The con being conservatives pretending to be Eurosceptic when their ACTIONS have been anything but!

Anonymous said...

I didn't know of this blog until now, and I've always thought blogs to be tedious bilge of no significance whatsoever.

So let's see. A guy who once used to be in an obscure programme on the telly, couldn't file an application to his party in time to stand as an MEP, despite being given extra time. He missed the deadline, was told he (obviously) can't stand, and so runs to the media to blab about "Zimbabwean election practices".

And yet this is thought worthy of webspace! This is the worst damage you can do to UKIP?

This morale-sapping, non-story rubbish posing as a scandal is then pounced upon by a littany of obvious BNP supporters on this page, who think that their fortunes will improve if UKIP's declines. (They won't - in 2 years as a member I have found zero racists.)

We work hard to try and get our message out, but because of ridiculous non-stories like this which to my dismay also appears on the normally admirable OpenEurope website, the 3-main party system is perpetuated.

About three years ago in the Daily Telegraph, on page 5 in column 7, a "news item" appeared that David Beckham had started shaving his armpits.

We get the media we deserve.

Anonymous said...

This morale-sapping, non-story rubbish posing as a scandal is then pounced upon by a littany [sic] of obvious BNP supporters on this page, who think that their fortunes will improve if UKIP's declines.

It's nice to know that the UKIP knows how to win friends and influence people.

Well done.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone find it odd that after paying £500 for the pleasure and going through an election process, Four of the people selected to be UKIP candiates almost immediately withdrew! Including one person who was top of the EU candiates list.

Something very odd is going on!

Anonymous said...

No matter what problems UKIP have. The fact remains that the June 09 EU elections is a simply binary vote.
On the one side, the Tories, LibDems and Labour say we become further entrenched in a European Megastate.
On the other, UKIP says we leave.

People of the UK, you have a choice.

Whatever Camerons bleatings about "renegotiation", all the Conservatives on here know the truth. He is pro-EU. He showed it when he went back on his word about leaving the EPP. He showed it when he let "Ben" Dover threaten Daniel Hannan with deselection for standing up to the "Parliament" and he showed it when refusing to guarantee a referendum on Lisbon if/when he becomes PM.