UKIP EGM - Bolton v NEC Who will win on Feb 17th
Just another UKIP disaster in a long list of disasters that have been occurring on a regular basis ever since the EU Referendum result came in on June 23rd 2016. Henry Bolton the fourth party leader since that date, is now under a bombardment of smears from members of his own party all determined to get him out at any cost, even if that means lying in public to their own members and others. No joke, I have seen it happening on a daily basis and I have decided to create this blog in an attempt to sift through what is true and what is not. I have been backing Henry Bolton in his fight and have been accused on several occasions of having my own agenda and told many times that as an Ex-member of UKIP I should keep my nose out as it is none of my business. Wouldn’t it be lovely if in politics you could only ever criticise a party if you were a member of it.
My reasons for being involved are twofold really, one is as those who know me well can confirm, I am always a champion of the truth and will always speak out against those who are not being entirely truthful with others. My other far more important reason is to do whatever I can to limit the damage that this is doing to Brexit. What many of those airing UKIP’s dirty washing in public fail to take on board in all of this is it will mean a devastating result for UKIP in the May local elections and every seat they lose to either Labour or Libdem, it will be portrayed as clear proof that people no longer want Brexit and that will then strengthen the argument for a second EU referendum. This is an unarguable fact and from what I have seen the least amount of damage will come from Bolton winning this battle with the NEC. The alternative means UKIP going into those May elections with an interim leader, an interim chairman, an NEC election and yet another circus show of a leadership election and should that happen then seriously those trying to defend their UKIP seats may as well not even bother filing the application forms. It will be a wipeout.
So because of that, I have been backing Bolton in this fight as I believe that will result in the least amount of damage to Brexit…
So who exactly is Henry Bolton, what makes him tick, are those who claim he is a LibDem plant out to wreck the party right? Let’s take a look closely at the real Henry Bolton, a former soldier in the tank regiment who has, without doubt, served his country because he was even awarded an OBE for services to the country for international security. A former police officer who was given a bravery award whilst serving as a police constable. You would think he would be pure gold to lead any party but no there are some that want him ousted at all costs and these people simply do not care what damage their methods might cause to UKIP or Brexit, they will do whatever they can to get him out.
This is a post was sent to me by someone else who stated it was written by a UKIP Councillor Mary Lawes and it really goes into some depth to clearly show the kind of man that is Henry Bolton, what he himself has sacrificed and why he is so passionate about UKIP and Brexit….
Henry put his name forward in late 2015 for police and crime commissioner candidate for Kent. Myself along with a few others were put together as his team. The campaign was going exceptionally well.
Henry was asked to speak at UKIP Spring Conference 27 February 2016. At this time Henry was still working in the EU on behalf of the British Government.
On his way to the conference that February day, he got a call from someone I was not a party to and do not know. He was told that day that he was not permitted to make a speech at a UKIP conference. I was not a party to his conversation so cannot quote him. He was told in no uncertain terms he was not to make the speech at the conference.
Quick thinking when Henry got to conference with I believe the Chairman and others. It was decided the speech should go ahead and was adapted for Diane James & Jill Seymour who agreed to deliver the speech. This would have put Henry’s name in the forefront for members to know, alas it was not meant to be.
Henry could probably clarify at some point the facts surrounding this and what happened next. Henry was as I said earlier doing extremely well around the county he was getting very popular where ever he went the police, prison officers, nurses everyone were starting to know who he was and his ratings were flying high.
Around the end of March 2016 or early April (Henry will clarify at some point). Henry was in his office in Brussels and was called in by his superiors. He was given an ultimatum. He would have to make a choice of keeping his job or running for UKIP in PCC elections. He was given 3 hours to make a decision. After calls to his wife and others, he decided to continue running for UKIP in PCC elections. He gave up an extremely good position and a well-paid job for UKIP, Obviously the establishment was worried about Henry and how well he was doing in the campaign.
They would never have done this to a person standing for the Conservatives from his office. Henry got the biggest vote of anyone ever in UKIP, but alas came second to a wimpy boy parachuted in for the Conservatives.
The Conservatives seemed to have blacklisted Henry from any jobs he applied for after this. He still did work for the Foreign Office, I think but nothing permanent. He was an expert and they did need his expertise but seems to have blocked him from anything permanent. Of course, when Henry ran for UKIP Leader he knew he would never get any other work in his field. I personally think he gave up more than most would have done as he believed in what he was doing.
So for me I have battled openly with Henry over the situation he now finds himself in. For me, though there is no other person no matter what anyone says that can reform UKIP into a professional party going forward. He is an expert in his field, he is a world authority on security and borders. No one in the government of any party is as experienced as him. The total lack of respect he has been shown from this party is disgraceful. To me, UKIP does not deserve Henry Bolton.
So is he a little naive in what is he doing? yes, he is. Has he made mistakes? yes, he has. Did he get any support what so ever from anyone? no, he did not. It has taken a lot for Henry to stand firm and fight for his leadership. It would have been easier to just walk away.
Listen to the video Diane & Jill made on Henry’s behalf at Spring conference 27 February 2016, it is a powerful speech. I was there and you could hear a pin drop when the speech was delivered. Yet Henry could not take and got no credit for the speech that he wrote.
Well Mary’s piece certainly give me a far greater insight into the man who is Henry Bolton and I think UKIP will be hard pushed to find a replacement that matches his calibre but of course, there are some that will believe the lies that are being pushed out across social media, many of those doing so are senior members of the party including NEC members and I will try to point some of their obvious lies out in this blog. For those of you that have suddenly gone to the moral high ground due to his marital breakdown, first of all, it is his private life and really has nothing to do with anyone but those directly involved, strangely enough, any true Libertarian would wholeheartedly agree with that. However, the most amusing part of all of this is compared to Nigel Farage, Henry Bolton is, in fact, a Saint and nearly all of those that are attacking Henry over his personal relationship, never attacked Nigel, in fact, they worship the ground he walks on. Now that is what I call hypocrisy at its very best.
In no particular order, I will address those lies…
Let’s first take a look at those senior figures who are NEC members like John Bickley, the party secretary, Elizabeth Jones, Michael McGough, Fiona Mills, Piers Wauchope and others who have all constantly stated that Henry has done nothing since becoming the leader. In the first four months of Henry being the leader of UKIP, the National Executive Committee (NEC) met just three times and you can see exactly what Henry has done in that same time period here on his own website:
https://www.henryboltonukip.co.uk/work-so-far/
Well, he has certainly done a lot more than the nothing the NEC members have lied about. John Bickley shot himself in the foot when he released information trying to show that Henry was lying about being skint, he let everyone know he had been given £10k in expenses in the past month, he neglected to say that they were living expenses and out of pocket expenses which clearly showed John Bickley knew full well saying he had done nothing was a blatant lie. Anyone with any business knowledge knows you do not accumulate out of pocket expenses by doing nothing.
Then there was the lie about Henry’s team all resigning, though Bill Etheridge was sacked but said he didn’t see the email and resigned anyway. Funny at the Gloucester meeting Bill said Henry never sends emails, so maybe Bill should actually try looking but the thing with the 17 who resigned, they were never Bolton spokespeople at all, they were in fact, UKIP spokespeople and if you read the Fiona Mills screenshot on the right she clearly stated “Do you want Henry to be able to appoint his own team thereby making himself a dictator?” So that proves they where never really his team and the resignations were nothing more than a show to add credence to ousting the duly elected party leader.
There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the NEC has been lying to the UKIP members and doing everything they can to smear their party leader and I truly believe that they expected Henry to simply resign after the vote of no confidence, well fair play to him for not doing so because now those who have lied will hopefully pay the price for doing so at that EGM on February 17th..
But it is not just the lies it is the daily barrage of attacks from senior members of the party doing all they can to discredit a party leader that has only been in place for just over four months. Take a look at NEC member, Michael McGough’s Facebook profile, post after post of nasty comments either directed at Henry Bolton or Jo Marney…
https://www.facebook.com/michael.mcgough1
It was also revealed that Mick had deterred the EGM being held in Derby as planned because it turned out that Henry Bolton has supporters there. See the pic on the right.
I could put loads of different examples up but I think it is plain to see that the senior members of the party have been telling porkies about Henry Bolton on quite a massive scale. However, they did not lie about his relationship with Jo Marney…
The Jo Marney scandal….
To a political spin doctor in any other party, this would have been seen as a golden egg moment, in politics the secret of success is to take negatives like this and spin them into positives to come out shining in the eyes of the voter and on this particular scenario that certainly would not have been difficult to do and UKIP could have gained a hell of a lot of support from it, especially had it been spun in such a way to make Marney a victim and Bolton the henpecked underdog. Unfortunately, there were those who simply saw it as an opportunity for their own agendas and went into attack mode with a total disregard for the damage their actions would cause to both UKIP and Brexit.
To me the NEC stance on this was simply because they did not like the plans that Henry had for the party because that would entail them losing some of their power, Elizebeth Jones made this quite clear in a television interview where she stated if anything this proves the NEC needs even more power not less.
From looking in from the outside I saw this as a three-pronged attack on Bolton by the NEC, certain members of the Indigo Group and Bill Etheridge, though all three prongs are directly linked by that Indigo Group. Bill’s was simply too obvious, he wasn’t happy with being Sport Spokesman and to be honest that did come across as a bit of an afterthought position, I can just see them sat around the table saying what are we going to give Bill, and someone piping up and saying well he just did a charity boxing match so lets give him Sports. Anyway, I am in no doubts whatsoever that Bill started scheming the moment Henry won and Bill did not get a senior role. I doubt he would under anyone else either though to be fair.
The worse ones by far in all of this were those who went down the dirty route and I know for a fact that involved Thomas Evans, Ben Walker and Annabelle Fuller, Nigel’s old flame. Now that does mean of course that the Ex-Leaders, Ex-Mistress shafted the New Leaders new Mistress and as Nigel used to often say, you really could make it up. What they did though was nothing short of despicable, they manage to get in contact with Jo Marney’s ex-boyfriend Patrick Gilmour and get damaging private messages from him and then release them to the media for no other reason than to discredit their party leader, an act that would make Suzanne Evans look like an angel, though I certainly would not be surprised to find out she was involved, as well. Fortunately, Jo Marney is strong-minded and took the tirade of abuse directed at her, even though they were said in private in a jokey manner and she had apologised unreservedly for any offence caused, this did not satisfy some though and it was like watching a rabid pack of dogs attacking is such a way that it would put a racist to shame. Why do people jump at an opportunity to attack other in the exact same way that the kind of person they are supposed to be against would act, I really do not get that at all.
Patrick Gilmour even was appalled at the amount of abuse she was getting and said to Annabelle Fuller that he did not want Jo damaging herself over this, to which she callously replied: “of course it has damaged her, she is a narcissist”. Considering Jo Marney had only actually done exactly what she had done with Nigel, clearly shows what kind of person she is.
The truth of the matter is whether you agree with Henry’s decision or not it really is no one else’s business. Obviously, he was not in a happy relationship or he would never of he looked at another woman. I know myself, that there isn’t a woman alive worth losing my wife over and they were far from secretive about it as they were posting pictures together on boxing day. I do know it is not my place nor anyone else’s to judge Henry Bolton on things that happen in his personal life and I am sure those that are doing so, most certainly would not like it done to them. The Jo Marney scandal should have been used for something far more productive than the nasty agendas of those who chose to abuse the situation for their own gain with a total disregard to UKIP or Brexit.
As for Bill Etheridge calling Henry Bolton incompetent, that is a classic considering Bill did a Brexit Rally in his hometown of Dudley proudly wearing a Dragons T-shirt, not a UKIP sign in sight but that was probably down to Luke Nash Jones who doesn’t allow politics at Brexit rallies. However, both were more than happy to have Dragons displays all around, which is strange as they are currently going through the Electoral Commision party registration process. To give you an idea of just how incompetent Bill Etheridge was, it would be on par with Henry Bolton walking around wearing a For Britain t-shirt… Bill really should not be calling other incompetent.
Now these two really do deserve a piece dedicated to them in all of this…
UKIP NEC member Elizabeth Jones and her nephew Luke Nash Jones, what are pair they are. Liz Jones has spouted lie after lie on social media, on tv interviews and she really must think that every UKIP member or anyone else is simply too stupid to look at the rulebook and constitution to see that she is lying. She constantly bangs on about how Henry Bolton has done nothing since becoming the leader and yet you can see in the link about to Henry’s website just how much he has done. She complains that he has done nothing in the way of policies and yet that really is not part of his remit, in fact, the leader is pretty much hamstrung by the NEC and has to get approval for anything he does… Here is what the party leader can do according to the UKIP Constitution:
7.3.1 The Party Leader:
a) shall have the right to be a full member of all sub-committees and working groups set up by the NEC;
b) shall, subject to the approval of the NEC, appoint a Party Chairman; in the event of a refusal to approve the appointment, the Party Leader may request that the matter be referred to an EGM of the party;
c) shall make or approve national statements of the Party’s policies and the manner of their communication; and
d) may make such other appointments as he thinks fit, with the agreement of the NEC.
Not a great deal and clearly shows that he has to beg the NEC to get anything done, remember that in the first four months of his leadership the UKIP NEC met just three times before deciding that Henry Bolton was not doing enough and had to go… think about that for a moment.
The UKIP NEC is responsible for setting up all workgroups and subcommittees in relation to policies, finance, in fact, everything really and if the local manifesto has not been produced then that is not the fault of the party leader the blame for that lie firmly and squarely with the NEC of which Liz Jones is a member of and has lied at every opportunity blaming Henry Bolton for things that are not even in his control or party of his remit. Then you have her nephew Luke Nash Jones, the self-proclaimed editor in chief of MBGnew and found of the Peoples’ Charter Foundation, he likes to get involved in everyone else’s business and then try to take over whatever anyone else is doing. He also has a habit of stealing everyone else’s videos and sticking MBGAnews logo’s on them and when we first met he told me he was not in any party and always insists that his demonstrations are apolitical, even the ones that aren’t his in the first place. I really do not have to go into great detail here because this video says it all really. It is Liz and Luke and watch Luke’s body language throughout the video, at times he is even struggling to keep a straight face.
CONCLUSION UKIP EGM - An opportunity not to be missed!
A rather long blog, even though I have left rather a lot out but from what I have seen throughout this whole fiasco is there are some in UKIP that has deliberately set out to remove their duly elected leader by somewhat foul means with a complete and total disregard to the damage their actions have caused to their own party and to Brexit. Should Henry Bolton get removed at the EGM this will mean that UKIP will enter the May local elections with an interim leader, and interim chairman, an NEC election and yet another circus show of a leadership election with Bill Etheridge running around in his Dragons T-shirt screaming “we ain’t gonna take this shit anymore”… Seriously in that scenario, the candidates trying to hold onto their seats may as well not bother getting out of bed for it. It will be a wipeout for UKIP and every seat they lose to either Labour or LibDem will then be portrayed as proof that people no longer want Brexit. This, in turn, will strengthen the argument for a 2nd referendum!
So well done to Bill & Ben and the UKIP NEC who quite frankly do not give a toss about those councillors trying to keep their seats because they want to do right by the people in their communities. There was a golden opportunity missed when the media started their smear campaign against Henry Bolton over his relationship with Jo Marney but some decided to use it for their own agenda rather than think on what was best for their party. The art of politics is to spin negatives into positives and shine in the eyes of the voters, this is something that UKIP has always been incapable of doing and every time that a smear has been targeted at them they have stupidly gone out of their way to qualifying that smear would it really of been so difficult to stand by the party leader for the good of the party rather than do what has been done. Just as easily as it was for Ben Walker to dig up the dirt on Jo Marney, he could have sought out information from Patrick Gilmour to defend the false accusations of her being a racist.. not difficult to do as I did it myself!
Well, there is a lot to think about for UKIP members who will be attending the EGM to decide on the fate of UKIP Leader Henry Bolton and I hope as many of them as possible, do get to read this blog before deciding which way to vote. I know there has been a lot of articles written by the likes of Kipper Central and UKIP Daily that paint a totally different picture than I have here but do remember I do not have a dog in this race and they do. The information I have given here is based on facts that I have sourced myself, even the information from Patrick Gilmour.
I know many will be voting for different reasons but I think people seriously need to consider two very important things before they vote.
1) What is best for UKIP?
2) What is going to cause the least damage to Brexit?
Personally, I think a vote for Henry Bolton is the best option because the NEC has been an incompetent pain in the butt for every leader and they need to be put in their place. This is the best and could well be the only opportunity the membership has a chance of doing that. Then if Henry Bolton does not perform as promised he can easily be replaced by another leader. I doubt very much there will ever come another opportunity for the UKIP members to show their NEC they have had enough of their lies, deceit and total incompetence. IMHO…
You can see Henry Bolton’s plans that he wants to implement in the party to give it a real chance of getting back into mainstream politics. At least take the time to consider those plans…
https://www.henryboltonukip.co.uk/plan/
Here I will be adding some UKIP facts than I think people should consider before voting at the EGM
- When Henry Bolton won the leadership election at the end of September last year only 12,915 members actually voted, 39.4%. That means that before he became the leader over 60% had already lost interest. Now that their memberships are expiring Henry Bolton is getting blamed by the NEC for them leaving!
- The NEC have repeatedly said that Henry Bolton has done nothing since becoming leader. This website link proves they have lied to the members. Henry’s website
- In the first four months of Henry Bolton being the new leader, the NEC met just three times.
- NEC says that Henry Bolton is incompetent and yet according to the Rulebook – E.3 Minutes of the National Executive Committee should be sent to all members by post, to be posted no later than 10 calendar days after the meeting has concluded. How many of you have seen NEC meetings minutes since Henry Bolton became the leader?
THE END RESULT OF THE EGM Henry Bolton lost the the EGM in Birmingham
Well, they held the EGM and the final result was 800 members vote in favour of the vote of no confidence in Henry Bolton and 500 voted in favour of keeping him as the leader… That means that less than 6% of UKIP’s membership made it to the EGM and it only took 3.8% of the membership to oust their democratically elected leader. Think about that for a moment…
What Henry will do now is anyone’s guess but I for one hope he has the sense not to re-stand in the coming leadership election which will undoubtedly be yet another circus show, embarrassing UKIP all over again. I think that even if Henry did stand and won, he would not have a party to lead after the defeat that UKIP win now faces in May local elections. I guess we will all have to wait and see what he does now.
In ENGAGE we will continue on doing our best to create a true Direct Democracy party here in the UK, one that gives every member an equal opportunity to voice their own opinions to help shape party policies, structure and direction. We believe that to change British politics for the better, first, we need to change our political parties work and remove that top-down power structure that is the reason so many parties like UKIP end up getting infiltrated and taken down from within. Have no doubts that is what has happened in UKIP and if UKIP had used the same communication we use in ENGAGE, I doubt Henry Bolton would have been ousted. Even if we had a similar situation and an EGM was called, we would set up the ballot in minutes and all members would be able to vote on the same day at zero cost to the party or its members. UKIP certainly do have a lot of catching up to do to get in tune with modern day communication systems and politics.
I personally think it is now too late and the defeat in May will be the end of a party that so many worked so damned hard to make popular in the first place, very sad to see but it really is RIP UKIP.
Of course, there are some that totally disagree with my own personal view on this but what is not overly surprising really, is that those most vocal in their attacks on Henry Bolton, very quickly show they are not interested in debate, they have their own agenda and nothing will change that. They give themselves away by blocking anyone who does not agree with them… no doubt there will be more to add to this hall of shame before February 17th
Here is my hall of shame of those types of people…
