Claim Tories broke code for election
THE Welsh Conservative Party has been accused of ignoring complaints of irregularities said to have taken place during the recent contest to elect a new leader of its group at the National Assembly.
Last Thursday Preseli Pembrokeshire AM Paul Davies defeated South Wales West AM Suzy Davies in the leadership election with a majority of more than two to one.
But now a whistleblower has told the Western Mail that supporters of Mr Davies made numerous campaign phone calls to Conservative Party members from the constituency office of Monmouth AM Nick Ramsay, a leading supporter of Mr Davies.
They said the calls were made from landlines in Mr Ramsay’s office at the Usk Conservative Club in Monmouthshire, and would be paid for by the National Assembly and ultimately by taxpayers.
“Although there were some instances before this date, since August 16, 2018, members of the Conservative Party were telephoned in order to canvass their vote on behalf of Paul Davies’ campaign team,” said the whistleblower.
“This was a clear abuse of Assembly resources for party political purposes.”
They added: “Campaign teams weren’t allowed to use membership records to contact members in order to canvass support under the party’s election rules.”
However, it is alleged that party membership records were used in breach of party rules and data protection law.
“A complaint was made to the Welsh Conservative Party on August 17 – to the chairman Byron Davies [the former Gower MP] and director Richard Minshull,” said the whistleblower.
No action was taken, however, and it is alleged that telephone canvassing for Paul Davies was resumed from the office days later.
The National Assembly’s code of conduct for AMs states: “AMs must ensure that they use Assembly resources for the purpose of their activities as AMs only and not for any of the purposes listed, which are prohibited: personal, business or commercial communications; party political activity of any kind, for example partypolitical fundraising, recruitment of party members and the organisation of party political meetings; and campaigning for the election or re-election of particular candidates for any public office (including the Member in question).”
A senior Tory source said: “There is no doubt that telephone canvassing was going on from landlines in Nick Ramsay’s office. There was no need for it at all, because Paul was clearly going to win.”
A spokesman for the Welsh Conservatives said: “This leadership election process was very closely scrutinised by the Welsh Conservatives’ appointed returning officer. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that election rules, or data bases covered by data protection law, were in any way broken.
“The leadership candidates did not raise any concerns about the nature of the ballot or any of the circumstances leading up to the count, when asked prior to the count commencing.”
The statement did not deny that a complaint had been made in August.
Mr Ramsay did not respond to a request for comment.