‘I am not refusing to abide by commissioner’s instructions’

I recently listened to a very interesting podcast on The News Agents titled Are Data Centres Going To Crash The World Economy?

This claimed that data centres, and particularly opposition to them, was becoming the major electoral issue in countries worldwide, with many candidates standing for election purely on their opposition to local data centre projects.

Closer to home in Alderney, the ongoing political and social debate concerning the proposed Alderney data centre project is hotting up and in my opinion is about to cause a major constitutional crisis greater than anything the island has previously experienced.

As part of this ongoing debate, the chairwoman of the Policy & Finance Committee, Jeannie Cameron, has been very active in the local press.

In particular, she has criticised my recent response to a code of conduct ruling against me from the commissioner of standards, Dr Melissa McCullough. I have asked for a right to reply to her allegations not because I necessarily disagree with her or because l want a public debate, but because they are factually incorrect. This is not her fault. It is a requirement of the code of conduct process that the recipient of a complaint is not allowed to discuss details of it until judgment has been passed, so she is not in a position to know what I have actually said and done. I would simply like to put the record straight.

I agree with Ms Cameron that I did vote for the commission’s appointment and should therefore abide by its rulings. Guernsey’s States of Deliberation also voted for the commission.

To me it seemed like a good idea at the time but, like Guernsey, and after receiving five code of conduct complaints against me, all directly relating to my opposition to the way the Alderney data centres project is being handled, I have come to have serious doubts about the functionality of the system as it currently is.

My main concern is that the system can – and is – being used as a political weapon to silence opposition to political decisions. Secondly, I think that decisions made unilaterally by the commissioner can have severe political repercussions and actually influence political debate and the decision-making process.

I have now been suspended from attending Alderney States meetings until January. During this time it is expected that the data centre project will be discussed, voted on and advanced. This is an example of what I mean by political repercussions.

Attending States meetings is not a pleasure. It is an obligation involving hard work and a certain amount of stress. Being suspended doesn’t actually punish or deter me. What it does is prevent me debating and voting on behalf of those members of the public who voted for me to represent them.

Effectively the commissioner is denying them important representation during a major decision-making process.

So did I refuse to abide by the commissioner’s instruction to apologise, as is being widely reported, to fellow member Stuart Clark? No I didn’t. In a letter I wrote to the Alderney Greffier on 30 July 2026, I stated the following: ‘With regard to the written apology to Stuart Clark, I am prepared to make one only after the alleged abuse of procedure to which he is a party has been addressed. That is to say, I will apologise after the tender process is postponed pending a proper risk assessment, environmental study, and a fit-for-purpose feasibility study based on those findings, followed by a full public consultation resulting in a public mandate to proceed. When all that is done, I will willingly apologise for any upset or offence I have caused him, but not before.’

So I am not refusing to abide by the commissioner’s instructions. I am simply making a political statement and protesting in the only way open to me.

Until now, there has been absolutely no public consultation or debate, and no health or environmental risk assessment. There has been a feasibility study, but the head of operations has declared this as confidential so it cannot be given to the public for consideration.

The public know this and they know that the States received and has been acting on high-level detailed proposals for hyper-scale data centres on Alderney (50MW and 200MW) with supporting infrastructure.

States members, including Ms Cameron and Mr Clark, backed by the commissioner for standards, have repeatedly denied that any such serious proposal exists and that the project is only in an exploratory stage.

The public are now rightfully becoming angry. Confidence in the States is apparently at an all-time low. They see States members as arrogant in that they think they know better than the public what is or is not beneficial to Alderney, and then work towards implementation without any public interaction.

The deliberate policy of secrecy surrounding the project has led to distrust of the States. One local investor who was placed to invest over £500,000 developing recreational facilities has just apparently pulled out because he doesn’t trust the States. We also have a morale crisis developing among our excellent civil service, many of whom find that they cannot do their job properly because they are not being told what is going on.

In my opinion, the States cannot operate without absolute cooperation with the public. The island is owned by the inhabitants, not by 10 elected States members, and they would be wise to remember this and become open, honest and transparent towards those whom they serve.

These are all absolute requirements of the code of conduct for members, which I thought the commissioner would uphold but has, in my opinion, failed to uphold.

I am not suggesting that we withdraw from the commission at this stage but I am saying that it is demonstrably unfit for purpose at the moment. But it is a new system and so there are bound to be initial problems. Perhaps, then, a review of the system and some amendments to it might be beneficial and help avoid a constitutional meltdown? Food for thought perhaps.