As a former MLC, I am fascinated by this case, as it is just extraordinary. It is a situation that has been blown out of all proportion over what was just normal political crossfire. If you do not know what this about, then read my article from yesterday.
This word was meant to shut her up. “Contempt”. That is what the Clerk of the Tynwald Standards Committee warned Kate Lord‑Brennan MHK (Glenfaba & Peel) her public explanation “could” amount to. But instead of silencing her, the threat blew the lid off a system that has form when it comes to going after outspoken Members.
Because the moment Lord-Brennan told her constituents what was happening behind closed doors, the Standards and Privileges Committee’s operation seemed to collapse. The secret censure they were preparing. The report they had already drafted. The timetable they had already set. The move they were ready to make without Members ever seeing the evidence. All of it was suddenly abandoned.
Late Night Emails
The Clerk’s late‑night message did more than raise the spectre of contempt. It confirmed the Committee had already made its decision. The report was written. The censure was agreed. The mechanism was chosen. The timing was fixed. They had already told her how they intended to pull it off.
Then she spoke publicly and the system was blown apart.
Instead of defending its behaviour, the Committee retreated behind “Rule 53” and kicked the entire affair into the election period. It will now be handed to an unnamed acting Commissioner for Standards. No name. No timeline. No accountability. Just a convenient delay that removes the Committee from the chamber at the exact moment scrutiny arrived.
And here is the twist that makes the retreat look even more desperate. When the Keys dissolves, Kate Lord‑Brennan ceases being a Member. The Code of Conduct surely stops applying?
They cannot gag someone who is no longer a Member.
Dissolution – What Happens Then?
Once dissolution happens, Lord-Brennan becomes a private citizen and election candidate and loses her MHK title. She can speak freely. She can challenge the process freely. She can expose the system freely. There is no mechanism to silence her. It becomes open season. But it is chilling to think that our elected representatives cannot do all that when in post.
And the Committee itself will not survive the election either. A new Tynwald will elect a new Standards Committee. The current Committee’s authority evaporates the moment the new House is sworn in. So is this why they have now referred it to an anonymous “Commissioner for Standards”?
So the Committee has pushed the investigation into a period where Lord-Brennan cannot be gagged and the Committee itself will not even exist. It is a delay that leads nowhere. A system trying to buy time when time is the one thing it no longer has. The Committee does have two MLC’s on it who will not be going out of office when Keys is dissolved. but is that enough to maintain the committee and have any credibility?
Houghton 2016
And this is not the first time the system has behaved like this. The last major censure was the John Houghton case in 2016. He was outspoken. He was combative. He claimed the system was determined to “get him”. The Committee found he had “bullied and lied” and he was suspended indefinitely until he apologised. It was an extraordinary sanction. It involved serious findings and a Member refusing to accept them. It was not triggered by a Facebook post or a letter to the newspaper. Houghton has always claimed it was an institutional stitch-up. We never did find out what would happen as Houghton lost his seat at the election but I understand that he would have still been ‘suspended’ even with a fresh mandate from the electorate.
The contrast is stark but the pattern is familiar.
Lord-Brennan asked the Committee to make its intentions public by 9.30 am this morning. They stayed silent. She revealed the fact of the email herself. And in doing so, she exposed a system that was ready to act in secret but not ready to explain itself in daylight.
So the question now hangs over the whole affair. Has Kate Lord-Brennan called their bluff? Because the speed and scale of the system’s retreat suggests she has.
