British National Party member Peter Pirnie has quit his Kingswear council seat just three days after the controversial decision to co-opt him on to his village parish council.
The 49-year-old bus driver became a councillor on Tuesday and announced his resignation yesterday afternoon amid a wave of criticism over the parish council decision to hand a BNP member a seat.Mr Pirnie said he was quitting because of the strain the row was having on his already disabled wife Sandra.
"I am putting my wife's health first. I have decided to cancel my seat and let them get on with it," he said from his Kingswear home.
He said he had been forced to listen to people attacking him on the radio and had been deluged with media calls at his home. "I have just had enough of them. I don't want anything to do with politics for a while. My wife's health is more important," he added. He accused his critics of being 'nasty, narrow minded and jealous' and added: "I have lived in this parish for 31 years. If this is the sort of thing that people are going to do then let them all get on with it."
Mr Pirnie has stood in local and general elections as a Labour candidate and a BNP candidate but never got in. He stood clearly under a BNP banner for the district council seat in Townstal and the Kingswear parish council's Kingswear ward in last month's local election and came bottom of the poll in both counts. But when it came to putting his name forward as a candidate for co-option onto the Kingswear parish council's Hillhead ward this week he declared himself as an independent. And he, and another two candidates, were duly made councillors by the other seven parish councillors.
The row over his co-option broke as the BNP's official website celebrated Mr Pirnie as the party's first councillor in Devon and the second in the Westcountry.
Kingswear's parish council chairman revealed yesterday that he had given Mr Pirnie an ultimatum - to either quit as a councillor or quit the BNP.
"I understand that he is standing down as a councillor. I am going to his home tonight to collect his resignation and I will be very relieved to do so," he said.
Earlier Mr Hawkins had said that both before the parish council meeting on Tuesday and during it he had asked Mr Pirnie if he was standing as a BNP candidate or as an independent.
"He said he was standing as a resident of Kingswear an independent. On that he was co-opted with the other two candidates."
He went on: "If he had stood as a BNP candidate that parish would never have even considered him. He has lived in Kingswear for a long time. We would not have co-opted a BNP councillor."
Mr Pirnie had insisted his BNP membership would have no bearing on his conduct at the parish council. He said: "I am a member of the BNP but I am not a candidate for the party in Kingswear. When I go into meetings I will leave that at the door."
Herald Express
Showing posts with label parish councils. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parish councils. Show all posts
June 16, 2007
June 15, 2007
We must all share shame at BNP's joy
A West market town became the first to see the race war close up this week, but those involved should be ashamed of themselves, according to Wiltshire reporter Tristan Cork
On another balmy June evening in another West Country market town, you might have thought it was carnival time. Drummers, singing, people dressed up, the police stopping the traffic and flags a-waving.But there was tension in the air, abuse and vitriol, and the smiling faces barely hid the grimaces of hatred flying across Corsham High Street.
This summer marks the 20th anniversary of writing my first ever report in a local newspaper in Wiltshire, and in the decades since I have never experienced anything quite like the hours leading up to a town council meeting in Corsham this week. I have never seen, or heard, anything like it in this normally peaceful, picturesque part of the West. In Corsham? If I hadn't been there to see it, I wouldn't have believed it.
How did this happen? How did a race war you'd normally find in Bradford or Brick Lane, in London's East End, come to sleepy Corsham? And in one phrase we have the heart of the matter - 'sleepy Corsham'.
For in Corsham, like the sleepy market towns right across our region, many people who put their names forward to be councillors just walked right into the position without doing anything other than writing their name.
It's not just Corsham, it's everywhere. Let's take, purely for argument's sake, South Somerset. Of the 95 parish and town councils that held elections last month, 74 actually didn't. Now although most of them are little parish councils where things are done much like they are on the Vicar of Dibley, there were many market towns in that list of shame: The likes of Wincanton, Castle Cary and Ilchester, for instance.
All of these councils did not have enough people standing to have the need for an election. Many of them, perhaps most, still had spaces, and chairmen and clerks are now spending the summer months cajoling the local shopkeeper, WI leader or vicar to join them to make up the numbers.
It's a pretty sorry state of affairs. I'm not going to comment on the BNP, their policies, their overt discrimination - people who aren't deemed by them to be British enough can't take up full membership even if they wanted to - or their followers. But if they were just twice as organised, well supported and clued up as they are now, it isn't difficult to imagine how they could have a seat or three on town and parish councils across the West by now.
Obviously the 350 demonstrators shouting and bawling at the 25 Union Flag-waving young men in Corsham don't like the BNP, and don't think a political party like theirs should be able to be anywhere near anything approaching political power.
But none of this would have happened had any one of those chanting demonstrators had the slightest bit of interest in the town council elections that took place in their community in early May.
Corsham may be sleepy, but it appears its people, like people from Wincanton to Stow on the Wold, are sleepwalking. They may be passionate about protesting in Corsham, but where was their passion for town hall democracy when it actually mattered?
The protest is too much, too late. I would imagine almost all the people demonstrating - the ones from Corsham at least - would struggle to name any of their town councillors anyway, let alone whether any of them are from political parties they might not like.
In fact, it's not the done thing to be party political on Corsham Town Council, so the chances are Councillor Mick Simpkins will never get to spout the BNP's views on immigration at a meeting of the finance and general purposes committee, or maybe the Summer Fete working group, even if he wanted to.
I'm not sure the BNP has a policy on the imposition of unpopular parking charges by North Wiltshire District Council in market towns like Corsham. But Mick Simpkins - irrespective of his odd views on the inclusion of Islam as a world religion in the national curriculum's RE syllabus - probably has a personal view, and one that now, given that he put his name forward, he is entitled to provide.
The fact is that he stood for election in the Rudloe ward, and no one else did. Those hollering demonstrators from Corsham should actually be ashamed of themselves for their apathy, and should have quietly slunk away vowing to get involved in the community politics of their town so that there wouldn't be a next time.
They might be entitled to stand up to declare that Corsham isn't the kind of racist, intolerant town people might think it is for having a BNP councillor, but they are quite wrong to try to pressure a democratically non-elected councillor to stand down.
The campaign organiser grandly announced at the end of this week's demo that they would be holding some kind of alternative election: As if Mick Simpkins had got in sneakily, somehow unfairly, that these good demonstrators had been somehow denied the right to vote against him and as if someone else was to blame. The irony and hypocrisy of this was lost on the crowd. They had their chance and they couldn't be bothered to even realise.
People queue for days just to exercise their right to vote across Africa and Asia. People put their lives on the line from Colombia to Iraq to stand for election, and many die for it.
It was Edmund Burke, the brilliant MP for Bristol, who apparently said 230 years ago that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. He must be turning in his grave at our apathy.
Western Daily Press
On another balmy June evening in another West Country market town, you might have thought it was carnival time. Drummers, singing, people dressed up, the police stopping the traffic and flags a-waving.But there was tension in the air, abuse and vitriol, and the smiling faces barely hid the grimaces of hatred flying across Corsham High Street.
This summer marks the 20th anniversary of writing my first ever report in a local newspaper in Wiltshire, and in the decades since I have never experienced anything quite like the hours leading up to a town council meeting in Corsham this week. I have never seen, or heard, anything like it in this normally peaceful, picturesque part of the West. In Corsham? If I hadn't been there to see it, I wouldn't have believed it.
How did this happen? How did a race war you'd normally find in Bradford or Brick Lane, in London's East End, come to sleepy Corsham? And in one phrase we have the heart of the matter - 'sleepy Corsham'.
For in Corsham, like the sleepy market towns right across our region, many people who put their names forward to be councillors just walked right into the position without doing anything other than writing their name.
It's not just Corsham, it's everywhere. Let's take, purely for argument's sake, South Somerset. Of the 95 parish and town councils that held elections last month, 74 actually didn't. Now although most of them are little parish councils where things are done much like they are on the Vicar of Dibley, there were many market towns in that list of shame: The likes of Wincanton, Castle Cary and Ilchester, for instance.
All of these councils did not have enough people standing to have the need for an election. Many of them, perhaps most, still had spaces, and chairmen and clerks are now spending the summer months cajoling the local shopkeeper, WI leader or vicar to join them to make up the numbers.
It's a pretty sorry state of affairs. I'm not going to comment on the BNP, their policies, their overt discrimination - people who aren't deemed by them to be British enough can't take up full membership even if they wanted to - or their followers. But if they were just twice as organised, well supported and clued up as they are now, it isn't difficult to imagine how they could have a seat or three on town and parish councils across the West by now.
Obviously the 350 demonstrators shouting and bawling at the 25 Union Flag-waving young men in Corsham don't like the BNP, and don't think a political party like theirs should be able to be anywhere near anything approaching political power.
But none of this would have happened had any one of those chanting demonstrators had the slightest bit of interest in the town council elections that took place in their community in early May.
Corsham may be sleepy, but it appears its people, like people from Wincanton to Stow on the Wold, are sleepwalking. They may be passionate about protesting in Corsham, but where was their passion for town hall democracy when it actually mattered?
The protest is too much, too late. I would imagine almost all the people demonstrating - the ones from Corsham at least - would struggle to name any of their town councillors anyway, let alone whether any of them are from political parties they might not like.
In fact, it's not the done thing to be party political on Corsham Town Council, so the chances are Councillor Mick Simpkins will never get to spout the BNP's views on immigration at a meeting of the finance and general purposes committee, or maybe the Summer Fete working group, even if he wanted to.
I'm not sure the BNP has a policy on the imposition of unpopular parking charges by North Wiltshire District Council in market towns like Corsham. But Mick Simpkins - irrespective of his odd views on the inclusion of Islam as a world religion in the national curriculum's RE syllabus - probably has a personal view, and one that now, given that he put his name forward, he is entitled to provide.
The fact is that he stood for election in the Rudloe ward, and no one else did. Those hollering demonstrators from Corsham should actually be ashamed of themselves for their apathy, and should have quietly slunk away vowing to get involved in the community politics of their town so that there wouldn't be a next time.
They might be entitled to stand up to declare that Corsham isn't the kind of racist, intolerant town people might think it is for having a BNP councillor, but they are quite wrong to try to pressure a democratically non-elected councillor to stand down.
The campaign organiser grandly announced at the end of this week's demo that they would be holding some kind of alternative election: As if Mick Simpkins had got in sneakily, somehow unfairly, that these good demonstrators had been somehow denied the right to vote against him and as if someone else was to blame. The irony and hypocrisy of this was lost on the crowd. They had their chance and they couldn't be bothered to even realise.
People queue for days just to exercise their right to vote across Africa and Asia. People put their lives on the line from Colombia to Iraq to stand for election, and many die for it.
It was Edmund Burke, the brilliant MP for Bristol, who apparently said 230 years ago that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. He must be turning in his grave at our apathy.
Western Daily Press
Labels:
BNP,
Corsham,
Islam,
Mick Simpkins,
parish councils,
race war,
racist
April 26, 2007
Could candidate apathy allow in the extremists?
Widespread disinterest in standing for parish council seats could leave the door open for extremists to take them, it was warned this week.
In 43 of the parish wards in East Herts, electors will not get to vote for a local representative on May 3. Too few people have been nominated for a poll in 22 of them and the exact quota has come forward in another 14, which also negates the need for a vote. Only seven wards - Aston, Brickendon Liberty, Cottered, Little Berkhamsted, Walkern, Westmill and Widford - will require an actual vote.
And while town councils generally attract electoral interest, this time there are only five candidates for 12 Sawbridgeworth Town Council seats.
The situation has prompted former Bishop's Stortford mayor Keith Barnes, whose four-seat town Central ward has four British National Party candidates standing among a list of 13, to say: "You could have had an extreme group get in without a vote being cast or someone from the Monster Raving Loony Party."
In Albury, where six seats are up for grabs, only Paul Cole has put his name forward. The situation is similar in Standon, where Henry Davies stands alone for the three spots. In Braughing, the trio of Andrew Peat, David Williamson and Peter Boylan know they already form half of the council.
The new parish councils will have to co-opt new members after May 3 to get up to full strength. If the field of candidates number less than a third of the seats available, a re-election is necessary. If the same happens again, the district council can appoint people.
By comparison, the number of independents standing this year for East Herts Council is on the rise to five - and a former Tory has changed allegiance.
Deborah Clark is a former Conservative who has switched to being an independent in the same Hunsdon, Eastwick and Gilston ward. She said she had tried fighting for change from within but found it difficult to speak out on important matters as a member of a political party, stating: "The resistance to change was frustrating."
Also seeking election in Sawbridgeworth for the district council is her husband Nigel Clark, better known as secretary of Stop Harlow North campaign. He said there was a lot of support to take party politics away from providing basic local services at district level, although at a national level his personal values were Conservative.
Keith Barnes has been an independent in Central for 24 years and former Ratepayers' Association mayor Eric Marshall is back in the fray in Stortford All Saints after more than a decade.
Retired social worker Mary Wilkinson, of Westland Green, is contesting Little Hadham for East Herts as an independent.
Herts and Essex News
In 43 of the parish wards in East Herts, electors will not get to vote for a local representative on May 3. Too few people have been nominated for a poll in 22 of them and the exact quota has come forward in another 14, which also negates the need for a vote. Only seven wards - Aston, Brickendon Liberty, Cottered, Little Berkhamsted, Walkern, Westmill and Widford - will require an actual vote.
And while town councils generally attract electoral interest, this time there are only five candidates for 12 Sawbridgeworth Town Council seats.
The situation has prompted former Bishop's Stortford mayor Keith Barnes, whose four-seat town Central ward has four British National Party candidates standing among a list of 13, to say: "You could have had an extreme group get in without a vote being cast or someone from the Monster Raving Loony Party."
In Albury, where six seats are up for grabs, only Paul Cole has put his name forward. The situation is similar in Standon, where Henry Davies stands alone for the three spots. In Braughing, the trio of Andrew Peat, David Williamson and Peter Boylan know they already form half of the council.
The new parish councils will have to co-opt new members after May 3 to get up to full strength. If the field of candidates number less than a third of the seats available, a re-election is necessary. If the same happens again, the district council can appoint people.
By comparison, the number of independents standing this year for East Herts Council is on the rise to five - and a former Tory has changed allegiance.
Deborah Clark is a former Conservative who has switched to being an independent in the same Hunsdon, Eastwick and Gilston ward. She said she had tried fighting for change from within but found it difficult to speak out on important matters as a member of a political party, stating: "The resistance to change was frustrating."
Also seeking election in Sawbridgeworth for the district council is her husband Nigel Clark, better known as secretary of Stop Harlow North campaign. He said there was a lot of support to take party politics away from providing basic local services at district level, although at a national level his personal values were Conservative.
Keith Barnes has been an independent in Central for 24 years and former Ratepayers' Association mayor Eric Marshall is back in the fray in Stortford All Saints after more than a decade.
Retired social worker Mary Wilkinson, of Westland Green, is contesting Little Hadham for East Herts as an independent.
Herts and Essex News
Labels:
BNP,
extremists,
independent,
loony,
parish councils,
ratepayers
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