The Restore Trust failed to secure a single win and immediately attacked the robustness of the charity’s democratic system after the results were announced at the Grade I National Trust’s Bath Assembly Rooms. It had fielded seven candidates amid complaints about how the 5.4 million-member charity is dealing with historical links to the slave trade and its approach to gay and transgender rights. Resolutions against the National Trust’s involvement in Pride events – described as a “divisive and reckless waste of members’ subscriptions” – and the rewilding “mania” were also not carried. In tweets, the Restore Trust claimed that a ‘Quick Vote’ system which allows members to agree with all the preferred choices of the charity’s trustees with a single click had been introduced “by stealth” and claimed that “there is a real crisis of democracy and accountability in heart of the National Trust. Our questions have been avoided. Our appeals were ignored. our votes were undermined.” Among his unsuccessful candidates were Philip Gibbs, a fund manager and Conservative party donor, who said the trust should be “less political”, Bola Anike, a Brighton-based campaigner who said it was “wrong to introduce the past through the prism of race’ and Jeremy Black, a former professor at the University of Exeter, who said the ‘critical presentation of certain qualities’ had caused ‘unnecessary controversy’. After one of the biggest ever attendances, the trust’s chairman, René Olivieri, thanked so many members for voting and quoted historian Neil MacGregor, who said of the National Trust’s diversity: “The big challenge is to allow as many of these stories as possible to be told – and from as many different voices as possible.” National Trust elections allow its nomination committee to recommend preferred councilor candidates to members and trustees to prefer proposals about the management of the trust’s 250,000 hectares, more than 500 historic properties and almost 1 million works of art. This year the charity introduced the Quick Vote system to allow members to agree to all these recommendations. This was suggested by Civica, the company that conducts its annual elections, as a standard feature of member organizations’ ballots, it said. But the Restore Trust tweeted: “This year, having secretly introduced Quick Vote, the National Trust management have magically elected all their candidates and quashed any attempt at member-led reform! Coincidence?” The defeat of the candidates will not be the end for the Restore Trust, said a leading member, Cornelia van der Poll, who told the Guardian: “Obviously it is disappointing and the Quick Vote worked against us, but we will continue to rally and let’s keep trying. .” The most important stories on the planet. Get all the week’s environmental news – the good, the bad and the must-haves Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The vote share of her panel of candidates was up from last year, she said. The Restore Trust denies claims that it is an “astroturf” group – which presents itself as a grassroots campaign but relies on secret donors. However, he declined to reveal who is funding the team and how much. A National Trust spokesman said the charity had “a long tradition of democratic governance”, which “gives our members the opportunity to have a say in the direction and focus of the charity”. “Over 127,000 members voted at this year’s General Assembly [annual general meeting]making it one of our highest election turnouts,” they said. They said “members are completely free not to use Quick Vote and can vote for any candidate or resolution response they wish.” After the Guardian asked the Restore Trust about its tweeting criticisms, it deleted the posts, but only after they had been commented on, retweeted and liked more than 1,000 times. Van der Poll was unable to provide any evidence that Quick Vote was introduced “covertly”, as a tweet claimed. The National Trust had included a section about the scheme in a voting leaflet sent to members.
