On Friday 05 February the Association’s AGM was held at the Hornchurch Library. A gratifyingly large number of members turned out to hear the outgoing officers’ reports of the last year and to elect the new officers for the year ahead.
After many years’ service on the Executive in different roles Steven Kelly stepped down as Chairman. Dame Angela paid tribute to his extremely valuable contributions to the Association and to her personally. Bob Perry, who had served on the Executive as Deputy Chairman for Membership and Finance for the past two years , was elected as the Association’s new Chairman.
His Deputy Chairman position was filled by a new-comer to the Executive (but not to the Association) Chris Sutton.
Pamela Freer, who had been the Deputy Chairman Political for two full terms interspersed with a term as Deputy Chairman for Membership and finance, also stepped down. The new Deputy Chairman Political is Harry Barrington-Mountford. Harry, although also new to the Executive, has also been very active in the Association for some while co-ordinating local volunteers for the Mayoral and London Assembly election campaigns.
The position of Treasurer remained in the capable hands of Marcus Llewellyn-Rothschild.
Keith Wells took over the position of President of the Association from Pam Light. Keith has been one of the Association’s Vice Presidents for some years.
The other officers’ positions will be filled by appointment at the first meeting of the new Executive Council. Sub-committees will also be formally constituted at that meeting.
The reports of the outgoing officers follow:
REPORT OF DEPUTY CHAIRMAN, POLITICAL TO AGM 05 FEBRUARY 2016
As usual we have had another very busy political year but this year our efforts were more fruitful. It made all the hard work seem worthwhile when, in May, we not only returned our popular MP Dame Angela Watkinson to Westminster for her fourth term but saw the first conservative majority government to be elected in a generation.
It was gratifying that UKIP remained very much a fringe party nationally. Electors were willing to vote for UKIP locally in 2014 as a protest but recognized that they do not have credible policies for government. I hope we will in 2018 be able to regain the seats in the Havering Council that UKIP took from the Party in 2014.
After May’s victories we took a well-earned break from campaigning for a few months before we started to think about this year’s elections namely to replace Boris Johnson as mayor and to replace Roger Evans as our representative on the London Assembly. These elections will be very tough because we no longer have the advantage of incumbency in either position and the strong growth of London’s immigrant population will give the Labour Party more potential support.
Your executive and some non-executive members participated in the selection processes that lead to Zac Goldsmith and Keith Prince being selected as our candidates for the Mayor and Assembly positions respectively. Keith Prince used to live in Havering and has previously been on the Havering Council so he is very familiar with our area and its issues. It is very important that we all turn out to get him elected to represent us. Please urge your family, friends and neighbours to turn out to vote because every vote matters. We started campaigning to get Zac and Keith elected at the end of October and will be keeping up a more or less continuous campaign until May. This campaign is being led by the candidates and an agent appointed by CCHQ so our role is currently to provide manpower to prepare material for deliveries, do the deliveries and canvassing rather than to produce all the literature.
Before the next General Election the long-awaited boundary changes which will allow the reduction in the number of MPs from 650 to 600 will be introduced. While our constituency is not likely to be affected much, if at all, this time, the legislation will require boundary reviews every few years in future. This will have profound implications for local Associations in some parts of the country as some Party members will potentially be placed in different constituencies at every general election and social and campaigning relationships will be disrupted. The relationship between elected representatives and their constituents will also be disrupted. In view of this, in June last year Lord Feldman, our Party’s national Chairman, announced a fundamental review of the Party and how it does everything. To this end there have been meetings of members all over the country where we have been able to listen to perceived problems and contribute to possible solutions. Members were also sent a short questionnaire so everyone’s views could be considered. I attended two of these meetings in London and they were very fruitful in making me aware of the potential problems but the solutions are not at all clear yet. I am not sure when the consultations will be completed and the report on his findings will be issued but I expect it will be before the middle of this year.
The Conservative Policy Forum (CPF) was originally conceived as a vehicle for Party members to contribute to policy ideas for the next election manifesto. Consequently, it was somewhat neglected by CCHQ in the past year as the next manifesto is more than 4 years away. However, the Party has realized that, for many members, the opportunity to discuss politics is the main reason for belonging to the Party and it has now revitalized the CPF under a new voluntary leader, Hannah David. More resources will be devoted to CPF in future and the aim will be to increase its membership and value to both participants and the Party. It is anticipated that regional CPF meetings will in future be arranged in addition to local Constituency-based groups and efforts will be made to spread the reach of CPF into higher education institutions.
CCHQ stopped sending out topics for CPF discussion just before the end of 2014 and has not yet resumed under the new CPF leadership. However, throughout this period we continued to have regular CPF meetings at our Butts Green Road offices. In the last year our group has discussed a number of important topics. We had a fruitful evening discussing how we could engage with the Muslim community with participation from Syed Kamall via a computer link a bit like Skype so we could see each other while talking. We debated the financing of retirement and responded as a group to the government’s consultation on changes to the tax treatment of pension savings. In the light of the on-going moves for Scotland to break away from the rest of the UK we debated whether we were (or even wanted to be) a United Kingdom. We also spent a number of meetings talking about how we could win the 2018 and 2020 elections and we submitted our group response to Lord Feldman’s consultation. Our most recent meeting considered the topical and critical subject of immigration.
I would again like to remind members that our CPF meetings are open to anyone who wants to attend, either regularly or on an ad hoc basis if we are discussing something you are particularly interested in. A list of meeting dates and topics is on our website www.hornchurchandupminsterconservatives.com. As before, we are holding our meetings at the Butts Green Road offices and there is no charge to attend. If you do not have internet access and would like to know the meeting schedule please telephone the office.
Last year in March we, as an Association, undertook our fourth trip to the European Parliament. This was, as usual interesting and informative. Unfortunately, due to Marina Yannakadakis losing her seat last year, we now have only two Conservative London MEPs so places for trips are cut by one third and we were unable to secure any places for a trip in 2016 despite ongoing interest from members in being able to go. We hope to be able to get places for 2017 if we are still a member of the EU then. If any members are interested in adding their names to those we already have on our list for 2017 please let me or the office know. While we remain a member of the EU it is so important that we have people of high caliber to represent us in Brussels as the EU has tentacles in almost every part of our lives. I was fortunate to be invited to a conference of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group of the European Parliament that was held in London in November. Topics covered ranged from the digital single market to religious freedom, from small business to energy security. EU matters are so badly reported in the British press that many of us are not aware that decisions affecting us on so many fronts are continuously being taken in Brussels. If you feel strongly about any issue there is a good chance that Brussels is also interested in it so don’t hesitate to contact Syed Kamall or Charles Tannock to let them know your concerns.
Once the May elections are behind us we will have to turn our attention to the 2018 local elections. Foremost among our considerations will be the selection of candidates to represent all eight wards in the constituency as a number of our previous candidates will no longer be available to stand for reasons of health or age. If you are interested in standing or if you have a family member or friend who you think would make a good Councillor please let us know as soon as possible. Without good candidates we stand little chance of defeating the incumbent Councillors in seats we need to regain.
In the course of the year I have again attended as many Party functions as practical to ‘fly the flag’ for our Association and represent our views and, as usual, I have very much enjoyed my role as your Deputy Chair for Politics. However, Party rules specify that a person can only hold an office such as this for three years or four years in exceptional circumstances. I have now been ‘in post’ for four years and so must step down. There is good reason for the rule as new people with new ideas must be given a chance to contribute and I trust my successor will enjoy the role as much as I have.
Pamela Freer