Brentwood and Ongar Independent Conservative Party
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The Brentwood and Ongar Independent Conservative Party was founded in 1999 by members of Brentwood and OngarConservative Association. This breakaway group alleged that the local Conservative association had been infiltrated by the local Peniel Pentecostal Church in Pilgrims Hatch, with 119 church members joining and some having installed themselves in key posts.[1]
Brentwood and Ongar is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Alex Burghart, a Conservative.
The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party, sometimes informally called the Tories, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom. The governing party since 2010, it is the largest in the House of Commons, with 313 Members of Parliament, and also has 249 members of the House of Lords, 4 members of the European Parliament, 31 Members of the Scottish Parliament, 11 members of the Welsh Assembly, eight members of the London Assembly and 8,916 local councillors.
Pilgrims Hatch is a residential suburb of Brentwood, Essex, in the east of England. There is a borough council ward bearing the name 'Pilgrims Hatch' which covers the Bishops Hall and Flower estates and a small rural area to the north up to Ashwells Road and Days Lane. Pilgrims Hatch usually elects Liberal Democrat councillors. It has a population of around 6,000 people.
The members of the Independent Conservatives were subsequently expelled from the mainstream Conservative Party for being members of a group that was standing in opposition to them. The claims were investigated by Conservative Central Office who decided that evidence did not suggest entryism.
Entryism is a political strategy in which an organisation or state encourages its members or supporters to join another, usually larger, organisation in an attempt to expand influence and expand their ideas and program. In situations where the organization being 'entered' is hostile to entrism, the entrists may engage in a degree of subterfuge and subversion to hide the fact that they are an organisation in their own right.
Until the 2002 election, the Brentwood and Ongar Independent Conservative Party had a councillor in Shenfield, Anthony Galbraith, who had crossed the floor in the council chamber from the mainstream Conservative Party. The party never succeeded in having any election candidates elected.
A Councillor is a member of a local government council.
In February 1999, the Independent Conservatives issued a press release suggesting that the Peniel church was a cult and was 'a danger to the people of Brentwood'. The church sued for libel, and Galbraith settled for an undisclosed sum and admitted that the 'allegation referred to was wholly untrue'.[2]
A press release, news release, media release, press statement or video release is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing information, an official statement, or making an announcement. A press release is traditionally composed of nine structural elements. Press releases can be delivered to members of the media both physically and electronically.
Martin Bell, OBE, is a British UNICEF Ambassador, a former broadcast war reporter and former independent politician who became the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tatton from 1997 to 2001. He is sometimes known as "the man in the white suit".
The 2001 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 7 June 2001, four years after the previous election on 1 May 1997, to elect 659 members to the House of Commons. Under the leadership of Tony Blair, the Labour Party was re-elected to serve a second term in government with another landslide victory, returning 413 of the 418 seats won by the party in the previous general election, a net loss of 5 seats, though with a significantly lower turnout than before—59.4%, compared to 71.3% at the previous election. Blair went on to become the first Labour Prime Minister to serve a consecutive full term in office. It was dubbed "the quiet landslide" by the media.
The party was dissolved and removed from the Electoral Commission register on 18 November 2003.
The Electoral Commission is a body established by the UK Parliament to regulate party and election finance and to set the standards for well run elections in the United Kingdom.
Mostyn Neil Hamilton is a British politician, non-practising barrister, and former teacher. He has served as a UK Independence Party (UKIP) Member of the National Assembly for Wales for the Mid and West Wales region since 2016; he was previously Conservative MP for the Tatton constituency from 1983 to 1997.
The Pro-Euro Conservative Party was a British political party announced by John Stevens and Brendan Donnelly in February 1999, formed to contest the 1999 European Parliament Elections. The founders were Members of the European Parliament who had resigned from the UK Conservative Party in protest at its anti-euro stance. Their reported aim was to replace Eurosceptic William Hague as Conservative leader with Europhile Kenneth Clarke. Stevens later said that they had intended to push Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine, Chris Patten and other pro-Europeans in the Conservative Party into "an SDP-style breakaway, in combination with the Liberal Democrats". The Pro-Euro Conservative Party disbanded in 2001.
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In the context of local authorities in the United Kingdom, the term no overall control refers to a situation in which no single political group achieves a majority of seats; and is analogous to a hung parliament. Of the 310 councils who had members up for election in the 2007 local elections, 85 resulted in a NOC administration.
Brandon Kenneth Lewis is a British Conservative Party politician who has served as Chairman of the Conservative Party and Minister without Portfolio since 2018, and has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Great Yarmouth since 2010.
John Anthony Michael Parrish was the Chairman of the Brentwood and Ongar Conservative Association during the split in the local party over the influence of the Peniel Pentecostal Church.
The 2010 Brentwood council election took place on 6 May 2010 to elect members of Brentwood District Council in Essex, England as part of the 2010 United Kingdom local elections. One third of the council was up for election with the council previously having a majority for the Conservative party. The Conservative Party lost two seats to the Liberal Democrats in Brentwood North and Brentwood West respectively.
Trinity Church is a church in Pilgrims Hatch in England. The church was founded by Michael Reid, who served as pastor of the church until stepping down in 2008, following various controversies. It is currently led by its former assistant pastor, Peter Linnecar.
Ongar is a civil parish in the Epping Forest District in Essex, England. Other than the town of Chipping Ongar it also includes Greensted, Greensted Green, Marden Ash and Shelley. The local council of the parish is Ongar Town Council. Located approximately 21 miles northeast of London, it is a partially developed parish with large sections of open land.
A Glasgow Hillhead by-election was held on 25 March 1982. The by-election was caused by the death of the Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Glasgow Hillhead Tam Galbraith on 2 January 1982.
Essex West and Hertfordshire East was a constituency of the European Parliament located in the United Kingdom, electing one Member of the European Parliament by the first-past-the-post electoral system. Created in 1994 from parts of Hertfordshire and Essex South West, it was abolished in 1999 on the adoption of proportional representation for European elections in the United Kingdom. It was succeeded by the East of England region.
Guy Vaughan Black, Baron Black of BrentwoodFRSA is Executive Director of the Telegraph Media Group and a Conservative Life Peer member of the House of Lords.
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The Ongar Academy is a mixed comprehensive secondary school, on Fyfield Road in Shelley, in the Ongar civil parish of Essex, England. The school, which specialises in STEM subjects opened in 2015, under Wave 7 of the UK Government's Free Schools Programme.
Michael Alex Burghart is the Conservative Member of parliament for Brentwood and Ongar, first elected in the 2017 General Election. Burghart was formerly a teacher, university lecturer and special adviser to the Prime Minister, Theresa May.
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