Michael Fabricant MP opens up membership of Conservative Friends of America to candidates

Following a meeting on Tuesday of the Executive Team of Conservative Friends of America, the decision has been made to open up CFA to adopted Conservative Parliamentary candidates.

Michael Fabricant MP, Chairman of CFA says:

"At a CFA event last week as guests of the US State Department at the Official Residency hosted by the Chargé d'Affaires of the London Embassy, a couple of candidates and senior staffers attended as well as a host of MPs and Peers.  The Chargé, Richard LeBaron, told me that he and his staff found it useful to meet future MPs and the behind the scenes policy makers as well as existing MPs.  I took the decision yesterday with Trey Barnes, Deputy Director of CFA, to extend membership of our organisation to all our adopted candidates.  But this will not happen until the June Euro and County elections are out of the way.  In due course, we shall be extending membership of CFA to the Party as a whole and holding events at our Party Conference though this is unlikely to be until 2010."

The event at the Official Residency was hosted by Richard LeBaron who is the senior member of the US Embassy until an Ambassador is appointed and included senior officials for Economic Affairs, the Political Section, State, and the Army Attaché.  CFA sponsors, Microsoft and BlackBerry, were present too.  David Cameron is President of CFA and William Hague its Vice President.

Photo shows Michael Fabricant (2nd from right) with Richard LeBaron (2nd from left) with Miki Bowman (Director CFA, left) and Trey Barnes (Deputy Director CFA, right) at the US Residency in Regent's Park: