Suppression of dissent
The following extract is taken from Charles Moore’s Telegraph column published online on 6 September 2022 under the title ‘Liz Truss can’t afford ‘faint hearts’ in her Cabinet’. Beneath it is the letter published in the Telegraph from Jan Lasik (General Counsel and Secretary of the National Trust) responding to Lord Moore’s article, and beneath that a letter published in the Telegraph from Zewditu Gebreyohanes (director of Restore Trust) responding to Mr Lasik’s letter.
The National Trust is a vast membership organisation, but so constructed that its five million-plus members can exercise no power. Under its rules, the chairman is a “discretionary” proxy for those members who return their ballots but do not tick “for”, “against” or “abstain” on any given members’ resolution. Almost unwittingly, they thus pass him their votes to use as he pleases. He votes, of course, for the resolutions his board wants. As a result, the existing management can almost always defeat reform.
Now the trust’s bosses are trying to exert even more power. For the council elections and resolutions proposed for this year’s AGM in Bath, which falls on November 5, they have just announced a new “quick voting” option. This will offer members a single box to tick which supports all the trust board’s candidates and resolutions. No need to bother to find out about the issues at stake, is the unstated message: just toe the line.
This change is designed to fight off a challenge from Restore Trust, the group campaigning for the National Trust to return to its core purposes of heritage conservation. The board particularly fears a resolution proposed by Restore Trust for the AGM which would abolish the chairman’s proxy vote.
The trust’s “quick voting” retaliation is part of the deeper problem. Instead of engaging with the thousands of members genuinely concerned by the neglect of the trust’s purposes, its leadership seeks to make their voice inaudible. Instead of rebuilding good will, which is the single most important element in any successful membership organisation, it is attempting suppression.
