Ukip excludes ‘appalled’ newAM in Gill staff row
ANEWLY APPOINTED Ukip AM has told how she was given a two-hour ultimatum to sack her staff or be excluded from the party’s group at the National Assembly.
Mandy Jones said she found out she had been kicked out of the group when she was handed a press release during a meeting with Assembly Presiding Officer Elin Jones.
Ms Jones has joined the Assembly as a regional AM for North Wales, taking over the seat vacated by MEP Nathan Gill last month. She was third on Ukip’s regional list at the 2016 election, and under the Assembly’s partially proportional electoral system there was no need for a by-election.
She said she was “shocked, upset and appalled” to be told that she should dismiss the staff members previously employed by Mr Gill.
A former shepherd and the mother of four grown-up children, Ms Jones, who lives near Corwen, said: “Nathan Gill contacted me a while ago and told me that he intended to resign his seat and that under Assembly rules I would take over.
“I then had a dinner in north Wales with Neil and Christine Hamilton. They were charming, but it was mentioned to me that I shouldn’t reappoint Nathan’s staff and that they would help me to get staff of my own.
“I was very conscious of the fact that I needed people to help me through the transition. Assembly officials told me that Nathan’s staff members had a good work ethic. I was happy to take them on to help me. Otherwise I would have been totally unsupported.
“I couldn’t believe it when I was given an ultimatum. Before the group meeting on Monday evening the other Ukip AMs were all friendly towards me, so I wasn’t prepared for the nastiness. I didn’t sack the staff in line with the ultimatum, but I only found out they had excluded me from the group during a meeting with the Presiding Officer, Elin Jones, when I was shown the statement. I was shocked, upset and appalled.
“My politics haven’t changed, but after their behaviour I wouldn’t want to work with such a bunch of people. All my energy will be put into representing the interests of the people of North Wales.”
In response, a Ukip spokesman said: “It wasn’t a two-hour ultimatum: she could have come back to us with her decision in the morning. But there was urgency about getting a response from her because of sorting out where she was going to sit in the Assembly debating chamber.
“It would be completely impossible for us to work with her press officer Llyr Powell on a story criticising the UK Government over Brexit when he is a member of the Conservative Party. We have issues with the other staff members too.”
Llyr Powell, one of the four Nathan Gill staff members taken over by Ms Jones, said: “We are all on temporary contracts. I’m the one most disliked by Neil Hamilton and [his wife] Christine. I had a Twitter spat with her around 18 months ago.”
Asked whether he was now a member of the Conservative Party, Mr Powell said: “I plead the Fifth Amendment.”