Martin Vander Weyer is a member of the Thirsk and Malton Constituency Association. In the article printed below he sets out the role of the Party's Regional Office. What were they playing at? Are they so incapable that they let this breech of the Party's constitution go through. Questions need to be asked and answers given.
Martin Vander Weyer is business editor of The Spectator:
"How dirty were the tricks? The chief allegation was that in 2012, Chairman Steveney (a former cavalry officer and Jockey Club official) expanded
the association’s executive council to include representatives of electoral
wards that did not have active Conservative branches. The panel quoted a rule
that ‘representation should be “from each Ward or Polling District branch” (not
from each Ward or Polling District)’, and said the rule was ‘designed to
prevent an unrepresentative “takeover” of an executive council’, a phrase much
quoted after the leaked publication; but the panel did not suggest Steveney had
attempted such a takeover. It simply said he had misinterpreted the rules and
must go through the restructuring exercise and -reselection vote a second time.
Steveney and his colleagues’ rebuttal, now also in the public domain,
never received a response from party HQ. It pointed out that the panel had
ignored the role of regional officials who advised on the restructuring, and
the fact that a senior party agent, Maurice Cook, had not called it out of order
when challenged to do so at the AGM."
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