Changes
to the Conservative Party Constitution or How to give more power to the
hierarchy
At a meeting of the
National Convention held on 25th November in Birmingham the
following changes to the Conservative Party Constitution were discussed and
passed to be formally proposed at the next National Convention meeting on 16th
March 2018. About 100 members turned up
on 25th November for this meeting out of the 1,000 members of the
Convention. For only the second time in
the last fifteen years ordinary Party members were excluded from the Convention
even as observers.
If these rule changes
go through you may as well bring down the final curtain on the Conservative
Party and on it will the written:
The Tory Party. The End
1)
“Constituency Associations” are abolished.
In future we will just have
“Associations” which will consist of one or more Constituency Associations.
This
is a sad day. For 150 years the
Constituency Association has been the building block of the Conservative Party.
No longer. This is the management of
decline.
2)
The
Annual Meeting of the National Convention to be abolished.
Voting for Officers of the Convention
will now be done “online”. Officers
will give reports “online”
This
means that there will be no hustings meeting at which the candidates will
speak. It also means that there cannot
be questions to the candidates. In the
early days of the Convention a motion was passed calling for hustings at which
the candidates were questioned. The
motion was passed overwhelmingly. The
Officers ignored it. Now there is no
chance. Also no opportunity to question
the Officers on their reports. This is
North Korean style democracy.
Why
don’t they just abolish the National Convention and have an Annual General
Meeting to which every member is invited and at which the Party Chairman is
elected by the members?
3)
Selection
of Candidates to be centrally controlled.
15
SELECTION OF CANDIDATES
15.1 The selection of
all candidates, including Parliamentary, Police Commissioners, Elected Mayors and local government
candidates shall follow a process in accordance with rules and guidance
published from time to time by the Committee on Candidates of the Board of the
Party (as established under Schedule 6 of the Party Constitution)
All further articles up to and including
15.2.5 to be removed
The entire section of the
Constitution which spells out the way in which candidates are to be selected
has been deleted. All selection will
now be determined by the Committee on Candidates which will also determine the
procedures for selecting candidates. So
a small group of appointed people unaccountable to the membership will now
determine all candidates. This small
group of unaccountable people will effectively decide who shall become a
Conservative Member of Parliament and from them who will be in Government. What happened to democracy? This is disgraceful. It shows complete contempt for the
people. What have we come to?
By adopting this proposal the last
vestiges of any rights for Party members has been eliminated. Now they have no rights at all!
4)
Conservative
Policy Forum
Under
the existing Constitution:
65 The Board shall
appoint a Director of the Conservative Policy Forum whose responsibilities
shall include the formation of a structure to co-ordinate the activities of the
Political Deputy Chairmen of the Area Management Executives and Constituency
Associations.
This
is to be replaced by:
65 The Board shall
appoint a Director of the Conservative Policy Forum on the recommendation of
the Chairman of the National Convention, whose responsibilities shall include
co-ordinating the policy-related activities of the Associations and Area
Management Executives.
Why
should the Chairman of the National Convention recommend the Director of the
Conservative Policy Forum – to increase his power or a nice bit of cronyism?
66.3 Three
representatives elected by the Political Deputy Chairmen of the Area Management
Executives in accordance with the provisions of Schedule 5 .
This provision of the Constitution
was never adhered to so instead of enforcing it what did they do? Delete
it! So now, every member of the Council
of the Conservative Policy Forum is appointed.
Jobs for the boys!
5) Area
Councils
The Constitution
states:
4 Any member of an
Association within an Area may stand for election within that Area to the Area
Management Executive provided they are proposed and seconded by members of an
Area Council in the Area in which they are standing for election.
5 The election shall
take place at the meeting of the Area Council.
The election shall be by secret ballot.
The Returning Officer shall be a member of the professional staff of the
Party, nominated for the purpose by the Board.
The
only problem is that there is no requirement for members to be told when the
date of the meeting of the Area Council is or indeed who are members of it, so
they have become self perpetuating oligarchies.
6)
National
Convention
The existing
Constitution states that:
5 Any nominee for any
such office or post referred to in Paragraph 2.2 herein shall have been a
Member of the National Convention for not less than two years.
This is now replaced
by:
5 Any nominee for any
such office or post referred to in Paragraph 2.2 herein shall have been a
Member of the National Convention for not less than the two years preceding the
date of close of nominations.
So
you cannot stand for office until you are in the third year as a member and are
currently a member The effect of this
is that none of the officers will have any long term historical knowledge of
the workings of the Convention
6 Any nominee for the
office of President shall have been an elected member of the Board for one
year.
This is changed to:
6 Any nominee for the
office of President shall have been an elected member of the Board for one year
preceding the date of close of nominations.
Same
comment as above
It
is time for the Conservative Members of Parliament to stop being so supine and
get off sitting on their hands and oppose these changes. If they don’t, then at the next General
Election the only activists left in their constituencies will be themselves!
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