PR tycoon Roland Rudd hides from People’s Vote revolt in his Hilton hotel room
Chaos continued to engulf the People’s Vote campaign today as power broker Roland Rudd camped out at his Hilton hotel room with security present after refusing to meet campaign staff at their offices.
Rudd, who is chairman of Open Britain and founder of City PR firm Finsbury, asked staff this morning to come to his hotel and meet with himself and new interim chief executive Patrick Heneghan.
Read more: People’s Vote staff walk out over ‘boardroom coup’
However, staff have refused to meet with Rudd at the hotel just a day after internal power struggles at People’s Vote spilled out into the open.
Rudd sacked Campaign director James McGrory and head of communications Tom Baldwin on Sunday night in what was described by staff as “a boardroom coup”.
People’s Vote is made up of five different organisations, however it is Rudd’s Open Britain that controls staff contracts.
The sacked pair still showed up at work yesterday morning and joined staff in a mass walk out from the campaign’s Millbank offices, after Rudd cancelled a staff meeting.
Rudd told the BBC yesterday morning that Rudd did not have the power to force him out, because the group “belongs to the people, not one businessman who has hardly been seen”.
He also speculated that Rudd was trying to turn the campaign into a vehicle for the Liberal Democrats – a claim the Open Britain chairman denies.
A People’s Vote staffer told the New Statesman today that the situation was “ridiculous” and that staff “would not go to Rudd”.
More than 40 members of staff were instead meeting at the group’s offices.
“These people are supposed to be leading the campaign and they’re too scared to come and meet staff in their own office,” the staffer said.
“Aside from the fact that the meeting yesterday was supposed to be here, and that it’s easier for two people, plus the muscle, to move rather than 40, it shows a total lack of respect for staff again.”
A People’s Vote spokesperson told City A.M. that staff were currently “discussing how we communicate our anger to Rudd whether in person or by email”.
Yesterday’s row sparked furious comment from other prominent People’s Vote campaigners, such as former Labour communications chief Alastair Campbell.
Campbell said Rudd had “no right” to force out senior members of stuff.
He said: “Rudd has been engaged close to full time in boardroom politics, a board which with few exceptions has done little for the campaign.”
It was revealed last week that Campbell and fellow New Labour figure Peter Mandelson were locked in a battle with Rudd to gain control of the organisation.
The pair swapped emails, released by the Mail on Sunday, discussing the need to push Rudd out of the leadership structure of the campaign.
Read more: People’s Vote power struggle: Two senior figures forced out
In one email Mandelson wrote: “I agree we need to pin down Roland’s slipperiness. To counter what he said … will require trawling through and possible exposure of private email chains. Who is going to do that?’
In another, Campbell wrote: “I do not see how this gets done without a public battle and it should happen soon and be fast and brutal.”
Image credit: People’s Vote