The UDP's NPC meeting was held on Saturday and while it didn't see protests like the one held last month, it still ended in a bit of a disaster. That's because less than an hour after it began, Patrick Faber showed up, and once again, the physical meeting was aborted. However, the voting continued in a WhatsApp group chat that Faber and the other members deemed expelled are not a part of.
But Faber said he has every right to be in the meeting because, in his interpretation of Justice Hondora's judgement, he and his other three colleagues were never expelled. He added excluding him and the other members - including Leader of the Opposition, Tracy Panton - is part of a scheme cooked up by Micheal Peyrefitte and Shyne Barrow.
Our news team was on the ground on Saturday afternoon and Courtney Menzies has this story.
At 2:30 on Saturday afternoon, members of the UDP's NPC gathered at their HQ on Youth for the Future Drive. By 3:30 the members had already started to leave. But it wasn't because the meeting was over. According to the chairman, it was "disrupted" after Patrick Faber entered the room. And that interruption may have led to Faber's permanent expulsion from the party - a decision that was taken over a WhatsApp group chat.
Michael Peyrefitte, Chairman, UDP
"We were ready, set to go but Patrick Faber somehow got into the meeting and tried to create a disruption. He wanted to derail the meeting but once we realized what he was trying to do, we didn't give him the pleasure to do that. So we decided to not proceed with a physical meeting but to right there and then convert it to an online meeting so we put resolutions to the members of the party. The resolutions remain to the party and we're voting as we speak and the voting ends at 5pm but the resolution is that everybody who was expelled from the party and everybody who were not in good standing with the party, except for Patrick Faber, we are putting that these people be invited back into the party and we proceed with our conventions and our national convention on October 5th."
Courtney Menzies:
"Voting is taking place via what?"
Michael Peyrefitte, Chairman, UDP
"How we normally do it when we did not have physical NPC meetings during COVID and the like, same thing."
Reporter:
"So you're hosting an NPC meeting and voting on WhatsApp basically."
Michael Peyrefitte, Chairman, UDP
"We've done Cabinet meetings by WhatsApp."
"It's a matter of a resolution for a decision, it's that simple."
But it never really is that simple with the UDP. Before the meeting was held, the Leader of the Opposition registered her rejection of the list of NPC members and asked her supporters to boycott the meeting.
That doesn't bode well for unity, so we asked Peyrefitte about it.
Michael Peyrefitte, Chairman, UDP
"Mrs Panton, the Leader of the Opposition, Honorable Tracy Panton, has a right to disagree. She has a right to disagree, she has a right to not like, in her opinion, what is taking place today. She objected to it but she had the decency and the respect to let the process take its place. She decided to stay away from the meeting, to have us put it in the floor to bring us back in but Patrick Faber, he thinks he's big and bad, he thinks the rules don't apply to him but the UDP is not an abused woman, the UDP is not to be bullied, the UDP will not have its doors kicked down by a sick, deranged individual. What the UDP will do, what I believe will happen by 5:00 is to say we don't want Patrick Faber in the UDP anymore."
"I know whilst I'm chair, when the applications come for conventions for the different divisions and Collet is one of them, Patrick Faber's application will not be accepted if he chooses to apply for one, in the convention."
But if you ask Faber, he'll say he was never actually expelled and so he isn't seeking reinstatement. He explained that he didn't disrupt the meeting and, moreover, he doesn't need an invitation.
Reporter:
"We've come to understand that you interrupted their NPC meeting."
Patrick Faber, UDP Senator
"I interrupted the meeting? That is the most disingenuous thing anybody could have ever said. I went upstairs and I sat down on a chair quietly. That's all I did."
Courtney Menzies:
"But you weren't invited to the meeting."
Patrick Faber, UDP Senator
"But I don't need an invitation. I am the former leader of this party, I am a senator for this party and I am the caretaker for the Collet constituency. No invitation needed. What we should look at is the flaw that happened when those who decided on who should be invited or who is entitled to be here happened and that is completely wrong. All of you saw the clarification of the judgement, they went on one thing when the judgement officially came out, they sought a clarification. The judgement said the expulsions of the Honorable Tracy Panton and by extension the other three persons, myself included, was illegal, void, it never happened, so they can't tell me that I can't come to an NPC meeting."
But as Peyrefitte would explain, the purpose of the meeting was to restore those members who were deemed to be not in good standing with the party, which would prepare them for a National Convention in October - where it was likely that Panton would be endorsed. However, Faber isn't buying that.
Courtney Menzies:
"The chain of events that's happening, it seems that in the end it would have favored you all because..."
Patrick Faber, UDP Senator
"No, you know why not, Courtney? Because you would have an NPC that is improperly stacked. So they would reinstate everybody. What would happen int he subsequent NPC meeting? So you would have Mr Uk and Honorable Panton in the meeting? You will have Beverly Williams and crazy man Almendarez in the meeting?"
Courtney Menzies:
"They'll have conventions."
Patrick Faber, UDP Senator
"But the conventions is a stretch to take this party under Shyne Barrow and Michael Peyrefitte a little longer until October."
"Peyrefitte said he would not preside over chaos, well, I'm looking forward to his resignation because the meeting ended in chaos today. He said he would leave the minute chaos happened because he refuses to do what is right which is the problem we had with him from the beginning."
Still, the virtual voting took place via WhatsApp and the majority of the NPC members voted to reinstatement all "expelled" members - excluding Faber. They also voted that the National Convention would take place on October 5th.
But the UDP novela is still far from over and now the ball is in Panton's court.
