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Members & staff of UKIP past & present. Committed to reforming the party by exposing the corruption and dishonesty that lies at its heart, in the hope of making it fit for purpose. Only by removing Nigel Farage and his sycophants on the NEC can we save UKIP from electoral oblivion. SEE: http://juniusonukip.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/a-statement-re-junius.html

Friday 11 January 2013

Andreasen v Hamilton - Round Two

And so the very public spat continues.......

From The Telegraph

Ukip MEP Marta Andreasen is threatened with deselection after Neil Hamilton accusations

Marta Andreasen, the Ukip MEP, has been threatened with deselection by Steve Crowther, the party chairman, after she was accused of spreading false rumours.



Nigel Farage and Marta Andreasen in happier times Photo: EDDIE MULHOLLAND

Mandrake’s disclosure on Sunday that Neil Hamilton, who is now a leading member of Ukip, had accused Marta Andreasen, one of the party’s members of the European Parliament of spreading “false rumours” about him and his wife, Christine, has had rapid consequences.
 
The chairman of the Right-wing party, Steve Crowther, has threatened Andreasen, a former European Commission whistleblower, with deselection. “I am appalled that a senior member of the party should behave in this manner,” he thunders in an email. “You seem unable to work as part of a team or fulfil the commitments you made when adopted as a Ukip candidate.
 
“You were wrong to state that sitting MEPs will not know whether they are to be reselected until just before the election. The first stage in whatever process is adopted will be for the party to assess, early in 2013, whether its sitting MEPs deserve to be given any further opportunity to represent it in parliament.”
 
Andreasen had alleged that Hamilton, who was elected to Ukip’s national executive committee last year, and his wife were being lined up for seats in the European Parliament, thanks to manipulation of the selection process for candidates.
 
“While we learn about this selection procedure, we are also hearing rumours about … the Hamiltons having already been given top positions on the list in  … the South West,” said the Spanish accountant.
 
Hamilton, who lost the fourth safest Tory seat in Britain after the “cash-for-questions affair”, replied: “As you may know, I am a barrister by profession and a very experienced libel litigant. Your email is defamatory and damaging to Christine and my reputations. We require you to send an apology and retraction.”

In a response that she forwarded to every constituency chairman in the south of England, Andresen said: “Neil’s email is an attempt to deflect from the points that I was making. He has [not] attempted to rebuff the claim that the now highly centralised NEC and the party leader have taken over the placement of candidates on the list in something that I have to say really resembles a totalitarian party.”

She added: “It is disgraceful that, as an elected representative of the British people, I am threatened in such a way following a communication to my voters. Ukip executive should not tolerate this behaviour, but I only get silence from that corner.”

To read the original: LINK

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