I have considered writing this article for the best part of a year, and reading Alex Snowdon’s opinion piece on Friday (4 September) was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.
Some months after I joined the States, it became clear to me, and to a number of other Members, that working constructively with Snowdon was going to be considerably more difficult than expected. Every attempt at collaboration seemed instead to produce further conflict, insinuation or suspicion. For a long time, I nevertheless resisted writing publicly about his conduct because I did not want legitimate political disagreement to descend into personal attack.
I no longer think remaining silent is sensible.
Snowdon has repeatedly made serious accusations about colleagues and the conduct of States business, and his latest article continues to present a version of the data-centre issue which, in several important respects, simply does not correspond with the facts as I understand them.
More importantly, many of these issues are no longer merely matters of competing political opinion. They have been examined independently by the Commissioner for Standards and findings have been made. The Commissioner is an experienced and highly respected public servant with a distinguished professional career in standards, governance and public accountability, including experience in Stormont, the Senedd and Jersey. That background may not be widely known, but it is relevant: her findings are not casual political opinions or the product of a personal dispute.
They are the conclusions of an independent officeholder appointed to examine conduct against established standards. Honesty and integrity are not optional extras in public life, particularly when an elected Member is making allegations capable of damaging the reputations of others, as well as seriously damaging Alderney’s reputation and ability to attract inward investment.
His latest article provides a useful example of why I have become so frustrated.
Snowdon again describes the current Expressions of Interest exercise as a “tender”. It is not a tender. No developer has been appointed, no site has been selected, no development agreement has been signed and no data centre has been approved. The company which originally approached Alderney has no privileged position in the present process and, if it wishes to pursue an interest in the island, must do so on the same basis as anybody else. This has been explained repeatedly, yet Snowdon continues to write in terms which give the impression that a vast development is already being progressed towards construction behind the public’s back.
Much the same applies to his complaint that there has not yet been an Environmental Impact Assessment. An assessment of what, exactly? At present we do not have a developer, a selected site, a final design, a cooling system, an energy source or even a defined project. If a credible proposition emerges, there will then be something real to examine: the economics, the power requirement, the site, the environmental consequences, the heritage implications, the infrastructure needed and the benefits it might bring to the community. That is also the point at which public consultation becomes meaningful. Asking people today whether they support an unidentified data centre of unknown size, built by an unidentified company on an unidentified site and using unidentified technology would not be meaningful consultation. It would be theatre.
The more serious problem is that this is no longer simply a dispute about terminology. The Commissioner for Standards has already found that Snowdon disclosed confidential information relating to the data-centre discussions and communicated materially inaccurate information to a member of the public by presenting Mannez Quarry as though its use had already been decided when it had not. She found breaches including the rules on truthfulness and confidentiality. That is not my characterisation of his conduct; it is the published finding of an independent Commissioner whose professional experience and statutory role require her to assess such matters carefully and impartially.
The Commissioner has also found that Snowdon deliberately refused to comply with the outcome of an earlier standards investigation and failed to provide the required apologies. That is particularly relevant to his latest article because he now says that he has not refused to apologise. He quotes a letter saying that he will apologise only after the States postpones the process, commissions the studies he demands, conducts consultation and obtains what he regards as a mandate to proceed. Readers can judge that argument for themselves, but the Commissioner has already determined the underlying question: she found that his refusal to provide the required apologies amounted to a failure to comply with the standards process.
Until I became a States Member myself, I knew mainly Snowdon’s public face: the genial and approachable local politician who knows a great many people and is very good at engaging with them around the island. I even voted for him. I suspect this is why some people will find what I am writing difficult to reconcile with the person they know. They have seen the public-facing Snowdon. Becoming his colleague, however, gave me a perspective I had not previously had.
I encountered a much more confrontational style behind the scenes: sharp reactions when decisions went against him, repeated challenges to the integrity or judgment of colleagues, and a tendency to portray ordinary disagreements within the States as evidence of much deeper dysfunction. On a number of occasions I have listened to Snowdon describe the States publicly as deeply divided when that description bore very little resemblance to the atmosphere I had witnessed inside the room. In my experience, the conflict he was describing was often substantially the product of disputes in which he himself was a principal source of the division.
I have never previously worked with somebody whose approach I have found so difficult to deal with. Some of the behaviour has been of a kind I cannot remember encountering since school, and I know other Members have also struggled to know how best to respond to it. In most professional environments, repeated conduct that damages working relationships through inaccurate allegations and repeated attacks on colleagues would become a serious management or disciplinary matter, and usually dismissal. Politics is different. An elected Member cannot simply be managed or removed by colleagues, nor should they be. The consequence, however, is that everyone else has to find ways of absorbing the disruption while continuing to perform their own roles.
It is also worth saying that this is a deliberately restrained account. I am conscious of my own obligations under the Code of Conduct and have therefore chosen my words with considerable care. Were I writing purely as a private citizen, I would describe my experience of Snowdon’s behaviour, and the character it has revealed to me over the past year, in considerably more candid terms. But I am not writing as a private citizen. I am an elected Member, and the standards I expect others to observe also apply to me.
There is by now a pattern which troubles me. When Snowdon raises an allegation, he describes it as scrutiny. When the accuracy of an allegation is challenged, he often presents that challenge as an attempt to silence him. When the Commissioner finds against him, he questions the standards regime itself. When an apology is required, he attaches political conditions to providing it. None of this prevents him from opposing a data centre or from criticising the States. He remains entirely entitled to do both. But disagreement does not exempt any of us from the obligations of accuracy, evidence and professional conduct.
This matters because repeated misinformation has consequences. I did not enter politics expecting to spend so much of my time correcting claims about work I am trying to carry out. I expected to work alongside nine other Members who would inevitably disagree about policy but who ultimately shared the same basic objective: making Alderney a better and more prosperous place to live. One of the greatest shocks of the job has been discovering just how much time can instead be consumed rebutting allegations and defending perfectly ordinary work against suspicions which acquire a life of their own once repeated publicly and on social media.
The damage is not abstract. There are now people in the community who genuinely believe that Members of the States are engaged in some sort of secret attempt to impose a data centre upon Alderney, despite the fact that at every stage we have followed the processes and professional advice available to us. Once people have been persuaded that their elected representatives are acting dishonestly, anger inevitably follows. I learned this weekend that two fellow Members have recently been subjected to threats from members of the public. I am not going to speculate about the motives of those responsible or claim that any individual politician caused those threats. The point is a simpler one: when political debate becomes saturated with allegations of secrecy, bad faith and impropriety, the temperature rises. That ought to concern all of us. I have myself installed motion-sensitive cameras at home. That is not something I ever imagined would form part of serving on the States of Alderney.
That brings me back to Snowdon’s political record. Snowdon has now been an Alderney politician for nearly ten years, which seems a reasonable point at which to ask a straightforward question: what has he actually achieved for Alderney? Not what he has criticised, opposed, complained about or questioned, all of which are perfectly legitimate parts of politics, but what has he delivered? After almost a decade in public office, including years representing Alderney in Guernsey, the public is entitled to look at that record and make its own judgment. I am not suggesting he has literally done nothing. He has served on committees, asked questions, spoken in debates and carried out the routine work of elected office. But after nearly ten years, surely the standard ought to be higher than attendance and participation alone. Politics is supposed to produce outcomes: better transport, new businesses, investment, jobs, infrastructure, improved services and reform – something tangible that exists because elected Members helped make it happen.
The Economic Development Committee has spent the last 20 months trying to do precisely that: restoring direct links with Jersey, supporting the Technology & Enterprise Hub, engaging with businesses and potential investors, pursuing new transport options and trying to address Alderney’s long-term economic problems. Some of those efforts will succeed and some will not. Some ideas may prove unworkable and should be rejected. That is normal. The point is to investigate opportunities, test them properly and, where they stand up, turn them into something useful for the island.
I have also come to understand something about Alderney politics that I did not appreciate before I was elected. I came into the States after careers in the military and the private sector, environments in which there is generally a strong expectation that you identify what needs doing, determine how to achieve it and then deliver. Outcomes matter. Government inevitably works differently, and for good reasons, but Alderney and Guernsey government can sometimes feel overwhelmingly process-driven: responsibility becomes diffuse, decisions take a long time and limited resources make even modest change difficult.
That is hard enough without political disputes creating still more obstacles. I am not the only current Member who has contemplated whether continuing is worthwhile. Constantly having motives questioned, controversies generated around routine work and straightforward initiatives turned into political disputes is exhausting. Whatever Snowdon intends, the practical effect is that substantial time and energy which could be spent improving the island instead goes into answering allegations, correcting accounts of events and dealing with conflict.
And perhaps this explains something I used to find puzzling. Over the years I have watched numerous capable people enter Alderney politics with enthusiasm and eventually leave frustrated and exhausted. Before joining the States I wondered why, but I understand it rather better now. Every hour spent answering another inaccurate assertion or dealing with another unnecessary controversy is an hour not spent improving transport, attracting investment, supporting businesses or doing the other things we were elected to do.
Perhaps after so long in office, public life has simply become extremely important to Snowdon. Perhaps the political role has become too closely bound up with his own sense of identity. I do not pretend to know whether that is the case, and ultimately I do not need to. Motives are less important than conduct and results. What can legitimately be judged is the public record, and after nearly ten years in politics the public is entitled to ask what he has actually built, changed or improved.
There is a basic distinction here which matters far beyond Snowdon or the data-centre debate. Scrutiny is essential. Members should challenge proposals, question committees and expose wrongdoing where there is evidence of it. But scrutiny is not a licence to present speculation as established fact or to continue suggesting impropriety after explanations have been provided without an evidential basis. Indeed, that is essentially the distinction the Commissioner herself has drawn in considering Snowdon’s conduct.
Alderney’s problems are real. Its economic challenges are real. Its demographic problems are real. We need Members who are prepared not just to identify problems but to help solve them. We will disagree, sometimes strongly, about how to do that. That is politics. But persistent accusations and insinuations do not become constructive scrutiny merely through repetition.
Nobody is trying to stop Snowdon opposing a data centre, and nobody is asking him to support one. What I am asking is much simpler: that facts are distinguished from suspicions, that confidential information is treated in accordance with the rules, that independent findings are respected even when they are unwelcome, and that political disagreement does not become a basis for repeatedly questioning the integrity of colleagues without evidence.
Those are standards that apply to Snowdon, to me and to every other elected Member. They are not an attempt to silence anybody. They are the minimum necessary if ten people with different opinions are going to work together effectively on behalf of Alderney.
Stuart Clark
Chair, Economic Development Committee
States of Alderney
