As the Scottish Libertarian Party's dear Leader convenes his election post-mortem this evening, it's important to give some information about why the results went so badly wrong this year.
But first, let's take a look and remind ourselves of the results and compare it to other libertarian leaning parties contesting in the same election.
Libertarian Leaning Party: | Performance: |
| |
Scottish Family Party | +6857 |
Freedom Alliance | +555 |
Scottish Libertarian Party | -78 |
UKIP | -2548 |
At a time when authoritarian governments, and their policies, are out of control, you would expect to see an upward trend across the board with all libertarian parties, especially one that possesses such a name, but when you see that every party is on that upward trend, but the libertarian party isn't part of that group, it really is important to start digging into the real reasons why that is.
With UKIP being the only exception which was already on a downward trend due to the Brexit issues we then turn our attention quickly to the Scottish Libertarian Party.
Any election result with greater than a 10 point loss would see any party leader quickly replaced with someone fresh and positive ready to brush away the rubble from the crash and restart the journey. Why should the Scottish Libertarian Party be any different? Especially when the evidence points to a Party Leader that has deliberately steered into this wreck!
Other than face allegations that he was simply incompetent, where the party leader had failed to reply to several requests from members offering to run as candidates and then struggled to get the candidate's paperwork processed in time, he was already producing excuses long before the deadline for nominations came about.
It's becoming quite clear that the Scottish Libertarian's Party Leader appears to have something else on his mind. With well over a week before the deadline for nominations why was he ignoring requests and settling for "20 or so candidates"?
The worst is yet to come though. The Party Leader was recently bragging in public using the Party's Twitter account, about a "purge" of candidates!
So what did happen? What was this "purge"?
The answer comes from the Scottish Libertarian Party's Deputy Leader and their Constitutional Committee who oversee the role of the Nomination Officer.
The Deputy Leader put forward her election team to put a challenge to become East Ayrshire Council's opposition. This included some very experienced and skilled activists who had put in a lot of time effort and cash into their election chances.
This was rejected by the Leader, acting as Nomination Officer, citing grievances about me, but why everyone else? This made no sense at all. What platform could they possibly have had and if he's so innocent, why the fear from other members and activists have to say?
And then there's this sudden comment: "New members will not be considered."
Why? Some of the 19 candidates were new members. Some of Stef's team had been activists for the SLP long before they joined formally. Is this just another excuse?
Even after the Deputy Leader formally complained to the Constitutional Committee, they reviewed the candidate selection and approved all 9 candidates yet the Nomination Officer still refused to allow them to stand.
There's no place left for any excuses now. The Party Leader should now resign to get out of the way of the Party, it's members, candidates, activists and voters!
Some members are already calling for his resignation. This AGM in September will be very uncomfortable.
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