Steve Roberts was one of several States Members to leave last week’s people’s meeting before the end of the informal question time, which has become traditional after the main business of the meeting has concluded.
One person present described that as a ‘walk out’ but most of the politicians present said that went too far. However, there are certainly concerns about the political mood in the island, with an election just two months away and the States President set to stand down next summer.
Mr Roberts said he left the meeting as the discussion had strayed into recent code of conduct judgments against States member Alex Snowdon and he did not want to be a party to unseemly bickering.
‘It was during the discussion on the recent code of conduct when I saw trouble brewing between States members and I did not want to get embroiled in this bad governance, so I walked away,’ said Mr Roberts.
He was also unimpressed by posts on Facebook from States members attacking other colleagues later that night.
‘It brings our States into disrepute and makes matters even worse,' he said.
'Apparently, after I left, it disintegrated into a public slanging match. In my view that is disgraceful governance and not a good show for Alderney.’
Mr Roberts, a former long-serving Alderney Representative in the States of Deliberation in Guernsey, claimed the island's new code of conduct system was partly to blame for deteriorating relationships between States members.
‘I believe the system recently created is not a good one and is counter-productive. It is a system without brakes. The amount of cases this year alone in Alderney is around 26.
‘It appears that every time a disagreement arises it disintegrates into a tell-tale culture of “running to the teacher”.’
Policy & Finance Committee chairwoman Jeannie Cameron was on the panel at the people’s meeting and stayed until the end. She, too, believes that behaviour needs to change.
‘The open forum part of the people’s meeting is usually bad, and Wednesday night’s was particularly so,’ she said.
She was accused of being untrustworthy for not publishing a response from Guernsey’s States Trading Supervisory Board to a letter from P&F over Aurigny’s performance.
Ms Cameron explained that she had intended to publish but received advice not to from the civil service.
She said that she had been warned that the ‘usual crowd’ would be gunning for her at the people's meeting and that debate had deteriorated when the data centre research project was raised.
She alleged that States member Alex Snowdon, currently suspended from States meetings, was ‘hurling accusations at us’ about entering into an exclusivity agreement with a data centre company, which has been repeatedly denied.
General Services Committee chairman Iain MacFarlane was scathing about Mr Snowdon and his stance against the data centre and ‘horror stories’ about hyperscale projects ‘that bear no resemblance to anything actually proposed for Alderney’.
‘Possibilities become certainties, and those certainties are then used to frighten people,’ he said.
Economic Development chairman Stuart Clark, who has also clashed with Mr Snowdon over the data centre project, said: ‘I think we’ve reached the point where it is perfectly fair to say enough is enough.
‘I am sick of spending so much time dealing with the fall out from someone whose political existence seems dedicated to attacking and undermining other politicians rather than actually improving Alderney.’
Mr Snowdon said he was simply representing islanders with deep concerns about the data centre idea.
He compared it with the controversial Fab-Link project of some years ago.
He also called on his political colleagues to halt all work on the data centre project until after Alderney’s next election later this year.
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