The loss of the mayor of Doncaster for the English Democrats raises the question as to the future of English nationalism. To put the loss into context it is necessary to examine the background to the original breakthrough.
It is worthwhile to understand the development of the English Democrats, and this applies to other political parties. At the start up of the 'organisation' there is nothing. Perhaps a handful of members, extremely limited funds, no manifesto, no officers, no branches, no structure, no hierarchy, little practical experience, and no chain of command. All of this has to be developed and built up from nothing. Following the 2004 EU elections the English Democrats organisation in Yorkshire consisted of a handful of members and a list of enquiries. Michael Cassidy, who had had experience of developing a political party from scratch both with the Referendum Party and UKIP, had been appointed Yorkshire Chairman [and so become a member of the National Council]. The number of potential activists could fit around one small table – for the whole of Yorkshire.
The development of the English Democrats in Yorkshire was more successful than in other parts of the country and Yorkshire eventually reached something like 45% of the branches and committed activists at its peak. This was reflected in the number of genuine candidates standing. For a short time the activist strength of the English Democrats in Yorkshire was not far behind that of UKIP and the local election results were far superior to UKIP's and, at a push, the English Democrats could hold their own against the BNP too and even beat them. UKIP did of course have the benefit of a Yorkshire MEP and the EU elections were UKIP's power base.
The launch of the English Democrats in Doncaster began with Michael Cassidy standing in Doncaster North as a parliamentary candidate in the 2005 general election, on the same date that Martin Winters was re-elected as Doncaster mayor for Labour. The English Democrats did not contest the mayoralty. Peter Davies, who had first met Michael Cassidy in UKIP, was not active in the English Democrats at this point in time.
Peter Davies subsequently stood for the English Democrats in the Finningley ward in Doncaster and achieved the best result for the Party in the country, coming second. However, although the local campaign effort was very determined, it was impossible to increase the vote from around 1,000 in the following years. Peter Davies remained a local activist, becoming the branch chairman, although he did attend two National Council meetings at Michael Cassidy's invitation. The first time was just after the Haltemprice and Howden parliamentary by-election when the English Democrats came third and were only 44 votes short of coming second [and had also polled more than three times as many votes as the National Front]. There had been some friction between Michael Cassidy and southern members of the Party who had tried to barge in and take over during the campaign. In particular, there was opposition from the southerners to the priority given by the Hull and East Yorkshire branch to the distribution of leaflets. Michael Cassidy wanted to impress on others of the need to campaign properly, which Peter Davies agreed with although he was not involved with the Haltemprice and Howden campaign.
The second National Council meeting the Peter Davies attended was in Nottingham, the autumn before he was elected as mayor. He had also spoken at one of the national conferences. It was at this second National Council meeting that the Party leadership was told of the local decision that Peter Davies should contest the Doncaster mayoral election in 2009 [this had been Peter Davies's own suggestion]. The National Council considered this to be a good idea, although they did not attach much importance to it as they were more focused on the EU elections which were held on the same day.
Neither the National Council nor Robin Tilbrook, the English Democrats Party Chairman, were involved in the planning, running or funding of the Doncaster mayoral campaign of 2009 at all. The deposit for the Yorkshire region EU election campaign was funded by both Robin Tilbrook and Steve Uncles. The deposit was saved and the money paid to Steve Uncles [Yorkshire was the only region to save its deposit]. Robin Tilbrook did contribute to some of the leaflets used in the local election campaigns in Doncaster in previous years, for which he deserves credit. However, the Doncaster mayoral campaign was funded locally with Peter Davies making the largest personal contribution.
A key part of the strategy for the mayoral campaign was to ensure that there was an EU election leaflet delivered across Doncaster to further increase the profile of the Party. This was important as it enabled the English Democrats to put out, courtesy of the Royal Mail, twice as many leaflets as any other independent candidate. The main challenger to the Labour candidate, Michael Maye, who was an independent with Liberal Democrat and Green Party backing, was unable to match the English Democrats leaflet campaign. UKIP did not stand. Additionally, there were further a limited number of hand delivered leaflets distributed in the last week of the campaign.
As a point of fact, Robin Tilbrook and others on the National Council were opposed to the use of the EU election leaflet to support the mayoral campaign. There was a bad tempered exchange on the National Council at a meeting in Bristol about this issue. The purpose of the EU election campaign was to stand in every region so as to qualify for an election broadcast. The Party did not have the resources available to manage a comprehensive leaflet delivery for the regions [unlike the previous EU elections when there had been leaflets for those regions contested], although some candidates did manage to put out some leaflets. The strategy pushed by Robin Tilbrook and certain members of the National Council was for the local chairmen and candidates to raise sufficient monies to put up a few billboards at some bus stops and other like places spread out across the regions. Yorkshire, where Michael Cassidy was the lead candidate as well as the Yorkshire Chairman, was the only region to reject this and all available funds were concentrated on leaflets, which were then targeted on Doncaster. This was a priority decided by Michael Cassidy alone and the EU leaflets used were drafted by him. The printing and delivery of those leaflets were also arranged by him. Peter Davies, who was sympathetic to Robin Tilbrook on this point [Michael Cassidy wanted a proper EU campaign whereas others wanted to restrict the campaign to qualifying for the election broadcast only], was in Perth at the time.
The write up for the mayoral booklet produced by Doncaster council, in which all the candidates were listed, was written by Michael Cassidy and Peter Davies jointly, with Peter Davies supplying most of the local information and setting out what he considered to be his manifesto for Doncaster.
There is an allegation that Peter Davies threatened to resign during the election campaign and that this was allegedly because of Peter Davies wanting to take a trip to Perth . In fact, Peter Davies had always gone to Perth during his candidacies in the local elections in previous years and this had been agreed without any acrimony or difficulty at all. Peter Davies did not threaten to resign during the campaign and such an allegation is completely untrue.
Following his election, Peter Davies and Robin Tilbrook arranged a meeting in Doncaster to which several southern members of the country attended. This was in part a celebration and in part an attempt to plan the way forward. The meeting was overshadowed by the very aggressive and determined attempt by Robin Tilbrook to impose David Lane, who was the West Midlands chairman, as Peter Davies's political advisor in preference to anyone local. David Lane, who lives near Coventry, was equally greedy for the role. Peter Davies did agree to David Lane's appointment, although he did not in fact so appoint him.
Doncaster was the breakthrough but instead of pushing forward and securing elected councillors in Doncaster as well as developing the Party elsewhere, the local organisation was undermined as Robin Tilbrook and southern members of the Party decided to muscle in and take over. Peter Davies was supportive of this for his own reasons: he wanted to be closely involved with what he saw as the Party leadership, and wanted to weaken the local organisation as he was toying from the outset with the idea of standing as an independent next time around.
The rest is history. Peter Davies wanted southern members of the Party to be involved in Doncaster and that is precisely what he got. Those who muscled in bungled the running of Yorkshire, as they had failed to develop the Party in their own parts of the country and as they have bungled the running of two London mayoral campaigns and failed to even identify a candidate to stand in the Bristol mayoral campaign. The National Council sought, according to Robin Tilbrook himself, to have a selection process to decide whether or not Peter Davies should be allowed to stand for the Party again!
Peter Davies did go independent. The consequence was to split the vote between the English Democrats and Peter Davies, with the Labour Party narrowly beating Peter Davies after several recounts. The only surprise is that the election was so close given the split vote and the far superior resources and profile of the Labour Party.
Peter Davies nearly won and he increased his first preference vote from 22.5% to 34.9%. Unfortunately, Labour increased its first preference vote from 22% to 35.8% and also picked up more of the second preference votes.
The original victory in 2009 was the culmination of a number of factors: the hard work and determination of the local activists – few though they were; the political nous of the key local officials and activists, and a good working relationship; a public which was receptive to the idea of an
English party; the policy stance of the campaign with the rejection of the mainstream political parties and their political correctness; the luck of having Peter Davies listed as the first of the candidates in the mayoral booklet; a strong candidate; Peter Davies's own local reputation and that his candidacy attracted some supportive letters in the local press; and not forgetting the revelation of the fiddled expenses and even criminality of MPs during the campaign itself.
The defeat of the English Democrats in Doncaster should not be taken as a defeat for the intellectual case of English nationalism. It was the result of the sheer poor judgement and bad management of the personalities involved.
