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A Letter to the Electoral Commission:
In a hard hitting letter to Sam Younger, Chairman, The Electoral Commission, Ms Swanson put very clearly the very reasonable objection and serious questions which need answering about Tony Blair’s Electoral Commission’s decision to make the official opposition the Tory backed NESNO group.
“I understand that your officers’ original recommendation went against NESNO. What caused your change of heart?
What have NESNO done to deserve selection? Any undecided member of the electorate consulting their website would find nothing at all in the section entitled “Our Case”. They have issued no press releases since the initial one in July. They have no plans for public meetings. How did all this lack of activity qualify them for government funding?
NESNO were listed by name as the chosen opposition to the Yes Campaign in an ODPM Committee Press Release issued on 9 September, a whole five days before you made your decision. How was this possible? Is the Deputy Prime Minister clairvoyant? Was he given prior information regarding your choice? Or did he lead, and you follow? The implications are disturbing

Graham Robb, NESNO’s spokesman, state that they aren’t against an assembly as such: they would merely wish it to have greater powers. We now have a Yes and a No campaign, each of which favours regional government in principle. So who will speak for the many people who argue, quite reasonably, against the very idea of it?

I find it extraordinary that you did not take traditional party loyalties in the north-east into account when making your decision

To hand financial control of the No Campaign to a group led by Conservative supporters and backed by the Conservative Party at once reduces debate, in this overwhelmingly Labour part of the country, from the rational to the emotive level, and significantly increases the chance of a Yes vote. This may well be crucial when taken in conjunction with misleading leaflets put out by the ODPM which do not accurately state the expense involved in reorganising local and district councils, the cost of running an assembly or the degree of power to be retained by central government
Complaints start going in to the Electoral Commission
What were your reasons, when presented with a straight choice between a non-party-political, grass-roots campaign and a group headed by prominent Tory supporters, for picking the one most likely to alienate a significant portion of the north-east electorate?”
You can read the full letter either from the link above or from Neil Herron’s site accessed from side bar.
Why is this subject so very important? because this is the first of the referendums to be held on the break up of Britain into regions, and the eventual transfer of all power from the Westminster government to the EU, who will then allow some powers to be given back to the regions, but Britain will by then have ceased to exist as a nation state, we and will never be in a position to leave the Union.
The Electoral Commission will be involved in all the other referendums and the big one on the EU Constitution so it is vitally important for democracy that they act in a fair way and that their decisions are not subject to general condemnation as this one has been.