Councillor hit with two-year party ban

9:58am Friday 18th July 2008

Comments (5)   Have your say »

A PROMINENT Basingstoke politician has been expelled from the Conservatives for two years over a dispute with a party worker.

County and borough councillor Phil Heath this week became an independent after Basingstoke Conservative Association's executive council voted by 17 to five to throw him out.

The decision was taken over an alleged argument conducted by telephone answer messages between him and Mike Denness, agent for the association and Basingstoke MP Maria Miller.

After Monday's vote, association chairman Nigel McNair-Scott said: "We Conservatives deeply regret that we have had to expel Cllr Heath from the party.

"We have the highest standards and people expect members of the Conservative Party, especially those who hold elected office, to share those standards.

"Last night, the executive council decided that Cllr Heath's behaviour was incompatible with those standards."

The party's general purposes committee last month suspended Cllr Heath, 52, based on "evidence relating to Cllr Heath's actions in a series of interactions with another individual".

The association's executive council, made up of elected committee members and representatives of each ward, backed the committee's decision in a secret ballot after reviewing evidence from written statements and witnesses.

Cllr Heath, who represents Hatch Warren and Beggarwood on Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council and Basingstoke South West at Hampshire County Council, is preparing an appeal to the party's national central board over the decision.

If he fails, he can still re-apply to join the party after his two-year ban.

He said: "I'm very disappointed. It was not unexpected they would vote against me, whatever was said.

"I was fighting on an uneven wicket before I even started."

Cllr Heath, a borough councillor for 16 years and a former party whip at Hampshire County Council, said he felt he had been expelled over a single incident in 20 years of service that should have been dealt with by a warning.

He claimed he immediately apologised for his message.

"They have elevated this to a level beyond anything of any reason," he added.

"As far as I'm concerned, I'm still a Conservative and I still stand for those values and I think the party will support me when I appeal.

"I can reassure the residents of Hatch Warren, Beggarwood and Kempshott I will still be working for them in the same way."

Mr Denness declined to comment. He said: "As a paid employee of the party, it would be unprofessional of me to comment on the inner workings of the party."

Cllr Heath said fellow borough ward members Cllr Dan Putty and Cllr Harry Robinson supported him at the meeting.

Cllr Putty told The Gazette: "I just feel a lot of sadness that he's not in the party itself for the time being. Hopefully, very soon, he will rejoin us."

Another Conservative borough councillor affected by the decision is Cllr Heath's wife, who represents Kempshott ward.

She said: "It does put me in an awkward situation because he's my husband and I support him.

"I think it could have been settled in a much more amicable, gentlemanly way."

She said she intended staying in the party.