War in the Conservative camp

Leader Colin Craig at the Conservative Party election-night function, North Shore Golf Club, Auckland. 20 September 2014 Herald on Sunday photograph by Michael Craig

Last week's battles in the Conservative Party are over after the board resigned one by one.

Now it's war: War about which group of members is the legitimate executive body of the party and, importantly, who gets control of the membership database.

Founder and former leader Colin Craig began the domino of resignations in the wake of questions about his relationship with his former press secretary Rachel MacGregor - which he has said was inappropriate at times but not sexual.

According to him, he is still a member and still has leadership hopes.

But Mr Craig received an email at 4.45 pm formally telling him his membership of the party had been suspended on Saturday by the new interim board of the party, headed by acting interim chairman John Stringer.

Mr Craig says Mr Stringer's membership was suspended on Thursday by a duly constituted meeting of the board headed by then-board chairman Brian Dobbs and therefore any meeting he held on Saturday was unconstitutional.

Mr Craig says the remaining office-holders of the party - the party secretary Nathaniel Heslop, membership manager Angela Storr and administration manager Kevin Stitt are responsible for the membership database and would likely begin a process to elect a new board by postal ballot - which could then go about getting a new leader.

Mr Craig said he would not stand for the board "but that doesn't mean I can't be co-opted or appointed leader down the track." He still wanted to work through with a board any issues or concerns they had.

Mr Craig said what Mr Stringer was doing was a "sideshow" and no one was following him.

"You know what Conservative people are like. They are solid as. They are not going to go off in some flakey direction with somebody who thinks they are the next party leader and suddenly make arbitrary decisions."

Mr Craig emailed the 10,000 or so members on Saturday and told them "if you are contacted by Mr Stringer please understand that he is suspended and has no standing in any way."

Mr Dobbs has not yet confirmed whether Mr Stringer was suspended by a duly constituted board meeting which required a quorum of two.

Mr Stringer said that within moments of verbally advising Mr Craig yesterday of his suspension, the board had received a terse letter from him advising them to get very good legal representation.

Mr Stringer said last night he had not been informed of any suspension although he had responded in writing to Mr Dobbs after disciplinary action was initiated against him for speaking to the news media about Mr Craig.

"I just don't think it happened."

He told the Herald, however, that if it could be shown he had been suspended by a properly constituted meeting, he would accept that he was not the interim board chairman.

But in the absence of such proof the board would continue and would have discussions with people about the prospective leadership.

"I'm not stepping into the leadership at this stage. I've never sought the leadership and we are just going to keep the leadership open at this stage."