Fringe Meeting - Party Conference - 30th September

YOUR ONLY CHANCE TO Discuss & Debate

The Campaign for Conservative Democracy (CCD)

invites you to attend:

“Candidates – let the members choose”

Monday 30^th September 2019 – 11am to 12.30pm  

 In conjunction with The Bow Group

At 3&4 The Arches, Deansgate Locks, Whitworth St West, Manchester,  M1 5LH 

Chairman: David Maddox, Sunday Express

Speakers:  John Strafford – Campaign for Conservative Democracy
Rt. Hon. Sir John Hayes MP – South Holland & The DeepingsBen Harris Quinney – The Bow GroupDinah Glover – London South East Conservatives 

A vote will be taken as follows:

Should the members decide who their parliamentary candidate should be?

Yes

No

Whip Withdrawn, De-Selection. If only they had listened?

On October 30th 2018 I wrote the following letter to Andrew Sharpe, Chairman of the National Convention with a copy to Sir Graham Brady, Chairman of the 1922 Committee.   I didn't receive a reply.   On 21st December I wrote again asking for a reply.   I received a reply from Andrew Sharpe dated 3rd January 2019.   In his reply he said he had not received the original letter but he would take up the two points with Sir Graham Brady and revert to me in due course.    He didn't revert back to me so I wrote another letter on 18th April asking for his and Sir Graham's reaction.   I have received no reply.


Dear Andrew,

There are two changes, which I set out below which should not be too controversial.   They are as follows:

(1)   Prior to the Representation of the Peoples Act 2000, amended in 2006, relating to the formal start for recording of a candidate’s expenses during a General Election campaign, each Constituency Association held an Adoption Meeting for the candidate including for sitting MPs.   It was this Adoption Meeting which triggered off the recording of expenses.   We believe that there should be an Adoption Meeting for all candidates in a General Election in the 12 months prior to a General Election.   Now that we have fixed term Parliaments this is easier to calculate.   The main reason for this change would be to involve all the members of the Association in the decision.   A secondary reason is that with the reduced membership in an Association many Executive Councils are correspondingly small and thus are easily manipulated.

(2)   In 2005, when Howard Flight had the Conservative Whip withdrawn he was also banned from the candidates list which prevented him from standing again as a Conservative Candidate.   This was a new provision brought in by the 1998 Constitution.   The decision appears to have been taken by the then Party Leader.   It is wrong that the Party Leader alone should have such power and it is proposed that for a sitting Conservative MP the decision on banning them from the candidates list should only be taken after the approval of the Executive of the 1922 Committee.

 I am sending a copy of this letter to Sir Graham Brady as Chairman of the 1922 Committee to ask for his support for the changes.

             

With best wishes

                              John E. Strafford

Chairman

How others see us 2

The following article was published in the Boston USA Christian Science Monitor An excerpt is published below:

John Strafford, a Conservative activist and former party executive in Beaconsfield, a prosperous London suburb, says Mr. Johnson’s no-holds-bars leadership has fired up the base. “It’s such a difference. For three years we’ve been pessimistic and down in the dumps and getting nowhere. Now people have got hope,” he says. “They can see an end date.”