REGULAR
readers will recall this series began as an analytical report on the
destruction of FREEDOM, the world’s oldest radical newspaper. Further
investigation revealed that the Board of Trustees (FFP) legally responsible for
safeguarding the newspaper was as seriously dysfunctional as the FREEDOM
collective.
Our immediate
fear was that having closed down the paper in 2014, the collective would sell
off the FREEDOM PRESS building and walk away with a million pounds to use as
they wished. Unless we could quickly reactivate FFP there was nothing to stop
them and they were already discussing the idea.
UPDATE THREE
briefly outlined the decline of Friends of Freedom Press (FFP) and reported our successful campaign to
have it re-constituted. As our ultimate aim was always to restore intellectual,
ethical and political integrity to a re-launched FREEDOM newspaper we chose not
to emphasise individual responsibility for the fiasco of FFP. On 24th June
2015, the first meeting of the newly reconstituted FFP recognised that without
the Northern Voices' campaign FFP would have languished. However, Richard Parry, one of the
individuals involved now rejects that view, claiming, 'If anyone was pushing to
get FFP working it was me!'
Parry
challenges our account and accuses Northern Voices of inaccurate reporting so we will now
analyse his response. (To minimise blame and antagonism we identify individuals
only where essential and apologise in advance for necessarily tedious detail).
1. As a qualified solicitor, Mr
Richard Vyvyan Tristram Parry, of R P Legal Consulting Ltd knows the procedure
that must be followed to be appointed as a Director to the Board of a legally
constituted Company registered at Companies House is a formal process,
prescribed by relevant sections of that Company’s “Articles of Association”.
2. To be appointed a Director of 'The
Friends of Freedom Press Ltd' (FFP) is a process prescribed by section 43 of
FFP’s Articles of Association, to be specific:
'No person other than a director
retiring at the meeting shall unless recommended by the directors be eligible
for election to the office of director at any general meeting unless, not less
than three nor more than twenty-one days before the date appointed for the
meeting, there shall have been left at the registered office of the Company
notice in writing, signed by a member duly qualified to attend and vote at the
meeting for which such notice is given, of his intention to propose such person
for election, and also notice in writing signed by that person of his
willingness to be elected.'
3. To be appointed a Director of FFP
Parry would first have had to be formally proposed in writing by a serving
Director. He would himself have to sign that proposal form which had then to be
left at FFP’s registered office, within that prescribed 3 to 21 day window.
That time scale was specified to ensure all Directors received due notice to
attend the relevant meeting. At the due meeting a quorum had to be met and a
minute book maintained. Parry maintains, 'If there was any impropriety in my
election as a 4th Director it was in the failure to tell me about it'.
Extraordinary, it would clearly be impossible for anyone to be properly
nominated, let alone elected in accordance with Section 43 and yet remain
ignorant of the fact.
4. When Mr Parry’s name was forwarded
to Companies House in February 2012 he had not been properly appointed and
wasn’t even aware his name was registered until I informed him so in an email
six months ago. In his email reply he expressed genuine surprise yet he now
pretends all was well except nobody told him that he’d been “elected”.
5. In fact, there was no election in
2012 to ratify his 'nomination'. As we noted previously, there were then only
three registered Directors and as recently as six months ago, two of them
confirmed that they had no knowledge whatsoever of the appointment of a Mr
Richard Parry.
6. Parry’s name was improperly
registered, the other Directors know it and so does he. As we sought a positive
outcome I wrote to him 'in a private capacity' to offer him an opportunity to
quietly withdraw his claim (of 3.3.201) to represent a Board of which he was
not even a member, without publicly losing face. Regrettably he preferred to
raise the stakes and sent the letter on to the FREEDOM collective (see previous
post for Mr Meinke’s role). If the rest of the Board had allowed this flagrant
abrogation of their proper responsibilities to continue we would indeed have
had no option but to alert Companies House to prevent the subsequent disposal
of FREEDOM’s assets. Fortunately wiser counsel prevailed.
7. Parry, similarly, insisted we
redirect any nomination of Dr David Goodway for Board membership to the FREEDOM
collective for prior approval (hardly a requirement of section 43). Where we
wanted FFP to get a proper grip on the aberrant activities of the collective,
Parry tried to engineer precisely the opposite result.
8. Just as the FREEDOM collective
refused to recognise its dysfunctionality until the newspaper finally
collapsed, Parry would have Northern Voices' readers believe only trivial problems existed at
FFP and these were already in the process of being resolved by application of
his own efforts and expertise. The truth is rather different.
9. FFP was utterly dysfunctional.
AGM’s are mandatory but hadn’t been held for years. Proper minutes didn’t exist
and when one Director, in March 2015, repeatedly asked the Company Secretary
for a copy of the FFP Articles of Association (AA) they were not forthcoming.
Parry claims AA can be obtained from Companies House, as indeed they can, but
members of functioning groups should not be required to apply to external bodies
(in this case NV) for copies of their own rulebook.
10. When Parry disingenuously wrote to me
on 3rd March 2015 'in my capacity as a Director of FFP' he did so without the
prior knowledge or approval of the longest serving member of the FFP Board, yet
he infers his action was legitimate because he subsequently sent her a copy of
the letter.
11. Parry had no need, or indeed proper
reason, to 'track down' any of the three legitimate Directors as he claims, for
every Company Secretary is obliged to maintain an up-to-date contact list of
Directors. If any tracking down was required, it was the Company Secretary’s
responsibility. In fact, we communicated with all three legitimate Directors
without difficulty.
12. Following our intervention, Parry
belatedly realised he could only hope to regularise his position if the three
legitimate Directors met and agreed a way forward. We were happy to accept a
Board that included Parry if the nominations of David Goodway, Ernest Rodker
and similarly respected candidates were also given proper consideration. That
general strategy was agreed at the 30th March 2015, FFP meeting and a
reconstituted Board of ten Directors was subsequently formed on 24th June 2015.
As we previously reported, 'A victory for common sense'.
13. In Update Three we employed the term
'rumbled' advisedly. When faced with wrongdoing, as anarchists we always try to
first positively appeal to people’s common humanity, if that doesn’t work we
point out the negative aspects of exposure, if the culprits remain obdurate we
are left with no alternative but to reveal the seamy side of individual
behaviour. We identified the dire state of FFP, appealed for positive change
and deliberately kept our power dry to allow sufficient opportunity for FFP
with the help of others to reconstruct itself. At every stage Parry spurned our
efforts to quietly reform the moribund Board and insisted on antagonism. Even
now, he appears to reject the Board’s judgement that the discomfiture of our
campaign was the prime mover in reconstituting FFP. We never sought to pillory
individuals, not even Mr Parry, but neither were we prepared to remain silent
and collaborate in the destruction of the FREEDOM heritage that took anarchists
a century to establish.
14. It is ironic that Richard Parry
criticises NV reporting as more than one correspondent observed that only on
the Northern Voices website can anyone discover what’s going on at FREEDOM.
Neither Mr Parry nor his friends in the collective have reported a word about
developments at FFP but we are happy to host Mr Parry’s response and continue
to carry his critique alongside our own account so readers can judge the facts
for themselves.
15. Even at this late stage, Richard
Parry might yet reach down deep into his psyche and locate that light-hearted
humanity that once prompted him to creatively contribute to “XTRA!”, one of the
wittiest anarchist magazines ever produced. Perhaps Richard, in his newly
legitimated role, might now concentrate on restoring intellectual and ethical
standards to FREEDOM which in October 2014 celebrated the newspaper’s demise
with a final issue bearing the inappropriately triumphalist words of collective
member, Andrew Meinke;
'Kropotkin
might have started it, but we fucking finished it!'
Christopher
Draper, Llandudno (August 2015)
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