Democracy - or Tyranny?

"Democracy - The British Way"

is the headline given to the proposed constitutional changes, that the Party leadership has called upon the members to debate and to vote on, at this coming Sunday's General Members' Meeting.

The BRITISH way of organizing democratic elections is for the candidate for office to obtain the signatures of TEN nominators. AND the practice of the major parties at Westminster is that the incumbent, serving party leader is liable to a challenge in ANY year. Within living memory, the then leader of the Tory party, Margaret Thatcher, was challenged one year, and then successfully challenged the following year, causing her to stand down both as party leader and as Prime Minister.

The British Way of Democracy is for us to improve our party constitution by:

retaining the right of annual challenge;

and requiring the challenger(s) to obtain a reasonable number of nomination signatures, rather than, as at present, hundreds.

This all being so, an AMENDMENT should be submitted to the Chairman of Sunday's General Members' Meeting, to read:

"Remove Clauses 7.2.4.1 to 7.2.4.3 of the present constitution".

By this simple and straightforward measure the party could obtain the "free and fair" elections that the Party Chairman acknowledges we need and to which we are entitled. That is, we secure the right to hold the incumbent chairman to account by retaining the right to an annual challenge; and the practical exercise of this right to challenge is not rendered almost impossible by the need for the challenger(s) to collect hundreds of nomination signatures.

Richard Edmonds

Founder Member and
Former Deputy Chairman
British National Party