A group of National Trust members has been prevented from attempting to debate the charity’s “debate-stifling” voting system at its annual meeting last weekend.
Traditionalist subgroup Restore Trust – whose candidates have sought resolutions against the trust’s participation in Pride events and the creation of more vegan cafes – attempted to force a vote to alter the way policies are implemented by the charity.
A new “quick vote” system has been introduced which allows National Trust members to give their backing to all policies proposed by the group’s board in a single ballot with little scrutiny given to each individual measure.
Although the move was intended to save membership time and effort, the trust has blocked the referendum on the voting system, accusing it of “stifling debate”.
The internal group has argued that the vote was introduced without scrutiny, and causes increased bias across elections (Stock)
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Co-founder of Restore Trust and an ancient Greek lecturer at the University of Oxford Cornelia Van der Poll said that the quick vote “dominates to such an extent that the voting at the AGM isn’t really meaningful any more”.
She added: “The voting has become a rubber-stamping exercise where the nominations committee gets to choose who will be in the council and huge block-voting swings behind those candidates and they get voted in almost automatically.
“I think we have a self-perpetuating oligarchy and the real loss is a loss of diversity of thought.”
Since the reform had been introduced, all of Restore Group’s preferred candidates have failed to win a seat on the council of 36 members, including former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption.
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The internal group has argued that the vote was introduced without scrutiny, and causes increased bias across elections.
The previous year, around 46 per cent of the membership applied the quick vote for council elections and 41 per cent used it on resolutions.
The trust has argued that the subgroup’s motion to hold a referendum of the voting measure was rejected because a resolution to abolish the quick-vote system was defeated the year before.
In response, Restore Trust has insisted that the vote must be held without using the quick-vote system, arguing the trustees were biased towards the motion to be defeated.
For example, a resolution – which was permitted – was a motion to make over half of the food in its onsite cafes vegan or vegetarian, in order to reach its net zero target by the end of the decade.
The National Trust has been accused of becoming too woke as it embraces LGBT lanyards, the banning of trail hunting, and the introduction of beanbags and disco balls (Stock)
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Speaking at Labour’s conference earlier this year, director general of the National Trust Hilary McGrady said: “Seventy per cent of my staff and volunteers would be regarded as progressive activists, so I have a workforce of people who are really wanting to push on this.”
However, Van der Poll has criticised leadership of the trust for its pursuit of “skewed and activist approaches to history”, with little to no consideration of its historical and curatorial importance, saying that it has become too woke as it forgets its original purpose, instead embracing LGBT lanyards, the banning of trail hunting, and the introduction of beanbags and disco balls.
A National Trust spokeswoman said: “The removal of quick vote was proposed as a resolution and voted on at the 2023 AGM. Members voted to reject the resolution and keep quick vote for future ballots.
“Under the National Trust’s parliamentary scheme, resolutions can only be put to members if they haven’t been proposed at any of the three previous annual general meetings. This is to allow reasonable opportunity for other National Trust members to propose resolutions on other matters that are important to them.
“Quick vote is entirely optional. It is standard practice for balloting at large member organisations.”