Thursday, 28 May 2009

Ralph speaks...

University of York
Wednesday, 27th of May 2009

Dear all,

As you may know I was suspended from the Conservative Party for writing a
column in an article which was
published
in Nouse, a student newspaper at the
University. I would like to apologise to the membership of the University of York
Conservatives. The article was published in my role as Chairman rather than from
my own personal perspective. I should have been more aware of that and for that I
am sorry.

First and foremost I will not be joining UKIP. The Conservative Party still has my
full support. While their decision to expel me has been described as harsh I fully
understand it. They have to weigh up the long standing conservative principle of
freedom of speech against the practicalities of running a political party. On this issue I am sure their judgement is more informed than mine.

However I do stand by my article. I would like to use this chance to clarify what I
wrote and perhaps defend myself against some of the criticism I have received.
The conclusions I draw in the article are entirely dependent on the premise I set out
in the first paragraph. I stated my belief that MEPs have very little real power and
their elections do little other than send out a message. If you do not believe or accept this then you should, of course, ignore my conclusions.

What I hope this incident has not done is to discourage anyone from voting. When I
was asked to write the article it was suggested it would be part of an anti-BNP piece.

This is why I set out the options as I did. The best way to prevent the BNP from
gaining a seat is to vote for any other to reduce their percentage. To this end (and
especially as I am no longer bound to a party) I encourage you to vote for any other
party on June 4th. I hope that this will be the Conservatives or UKIP but now, as
then, the decision is up to you.

Ralph Buckle
Former Chairman

1 comments:

Will S
said...

Well done. A very honourable stance. I can think of countless opportunists without principles who would have joined UKIP at this point. In these dark days it's good to hear of someone who is prepared to stand up for his beliefs in the face of opposition.

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