'Departy politics' for the Islanders Association

Tuesday 23 October 2018

The front man of Guernsey's political organisation, the Islanders Association has been left reeling by the decision of three of his committee members to publicly quit the group without telling him first.

Deputy Carl Meerveld admitted he had no idea his two fellow founding members, and the Chair of the group's Executive Committee, were going to resign before Express asked him for comment on the subject yesterday.

Local media outlets had been sent a statement by Chairman Harvey Marshall yesterday afternoon, confirming that he and Founder Members, Deputies Peter Ferbrache and Joe Mooney, had all resigned from the group's committee.

These three committee resignations followed the resignation from the Committee last week of Anne Ewing, who had joined the Committee to work on compliance and secretarial matters. Jeff Whitaker, who had joined the Committee to assist with IT matters, had also previously resigned. 

Pictured: The letter sent to the media yesterday came from the Islanders Association, but its front man, Deputy Carl Meerveld, had no idea the trio had resigned. 

Deputies Ferbrache, Mooney and Mr Marshall were all initially believed to have resigned over "differences of administrative style amongst some members of the Committee."

Since then, Deputy Meerveld confirmed to Express that "there have been differences of opinion, but I am surprised and disappointed that they have decided to resign.

"I would like to thank them for their service and will be working with members to decide our way forward."

It's not clear how many members remain though, with just deputies Meerveld and Marc Leadbeater now believed to be on the committee, while deputies John Gollop and Barry Paint and Alderney States Representative Louis Jean are all known to be members.

Meetings of the Islanders Association attended by Express have shown different levels of public involvement.

Pictured: The inaugural meeting of the Islanders Association held earlier this year. 

The Islanders Association's main achievement so far, has been the success of the referendum on island wide voting. The Association backed Option A with deputies Meerveld and Ferbrache appointed as the official campaign group. Option A - which offered 38 deputies elected for four year terms on an island wide basis - won the vote, winning 5,304 votes.

Since then, Deputy Ferbrache has seconded an amendment proposed by Deputy Gavin St Pier, calling for five year terms of office. Some members of the public have said that goes against what they voted for in the referendum.

That could be one of the differences of opinion which has been referred to by Deputy Meerveld, who has also commented on a "challenging meeting" held last week, where the Islanders Association committee had to agree to disagree on some matters - but he wouldn't say what those matters were.

He has also said elsewhere that the division of work had caused problems for some members of the Association, and that some said he had been 'overexposed'. 

During the referendum campaign Deputy Meerveld was seen wearing a sandwich board promoting Option A and he was filmed for campaign videos encouraging people to get involved with the landmark public poll.

In the statement released yesterday Mr Marshall, said: “We are pleased and proud of having successfully campaigned on behalf of the Islanders Association in support of Option A, pure Island-Wide Voting, in the recent Referendum on Guernsey’s electoral system. We see this milestone as the necessary first step towards achieving a more economically efficient, lest wasteful, less dilatory and more businesslike system of government for Guernsey. We expect that these will continue to be the objectives of the Islanders Association.