Conservative Monday Club
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The Conservative Monday Club (widely known as the Monday Club) is a British far-right [1] pressure-group with its origins in the Conservative Party. It was founded in the early 1960s during the party's internal debate over decolonisation. Its published aims state that "The Monday Club stands for traditional Tory principles".
The club's long-standing links with the Conservative Party were suspended by then party leader Iain Duncan Smith in October 2001 [2] and have not been restored to date. The Tory leader said his party would have nothing to do with the organisation unless it stopped making "distasteful" remarks on race and immigration [3]. Currently, no sitting Conservative MPs are members of the club, although all new members of the Club must be members of the Conservative Party.
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[edit] Relationship to the Conservative Party
The club was formed as a reaction to Harold Macmillan's 'Wind of Change' speech made at Cape Town, South Africa. In it Macmillan stated that the
- "wind of change is blowing through this continent. Whether we like it or not this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept this fact and our national policies must take account of it."
The speech was seen by some to herald the Macmillan government's opposition to apartheid[1] and its acceptance of decolonisation in Africa, and elsewhere.
The Monday Club stated that Macmillan had "turned the Party Left", and their first pamphlet opposed these policies, as indicative of the Conservative Party's move towards liberalism. The Club opposed what it described as the "premature" independence of Kenya, and the breakup of the Central African Federation, which was the subject of its first major public meeting in September 1961 and reported in the Daily Mail [cf.Copping, vol.1, p6]. It was fundamentally opposed to decolonisation, and defended white minority rule in South Africa and Rhodesia. Macmillan, in Volume VI of his memoirs, alludes briefly to a Monday Club call for his resignation.
In making comparisons between the Monday Club and the Bow Group, Ian Waller, writing in the Sunday Telegraph in 1971, stated that the Club had overtaken the Bow Group. He also claimed that it was in tune with the prevailing mood among Conservatives, and praised its leadership. [cf.Copping (i) p.28).
In his speech from the Chair at the Club's AGM in March 1974, the Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, (former MP for Bournemouth West), who had succeeded his father as President of the Club, stated that he saw the Club "as a vehicle for expressing true Conservatism."
John Biggs-Davison, MP, in his Foreword to Robert Copping's second book on the history of the Club (May 1975), stated that "by its principles [the club] has kept alive true Tory beliefs and held within its ranks many who contemplated defecting from the Conservative and Unionist Party". Harold Wilson, twice Labour Prime Minister, described the club as "the guardian of the Tory conscience". The club's Chairman, David Storey, described it in June 1981 as "an anchor to a ship", referring to the Conservative Party.
The Club's revised Constitution (21 May 1984) stated that "the objects of the Club are to support the Conservative & Unionist Party in policies designed
- to maintain loyalty to the Crown and to uphold the sovereignty of Parliament, the security of the realm, and defence of the nation against external aggression and internal subversion;
- to safeguard the liberty of the subject and integrity of the family in accordance with the customs, traditions, and character of the British people;
- to maintain the British constitution in obedience and respect for the laws of the land, freedom of worship and our national heritage;
- to promote an economy consistent with national aspirations and Tory ideals.
- to encourage members of the Club to play an active part, at all levels, in the affairs of the Conservative and Unionist Party."
[edit] Suspension of links
In 2001, Conservative Party chairman David Davis informed a deputation from the Club's National Executive that links between it and the party were being severed until it stopped promoting several of its long-held views such as the voluntary repatriation of ethnic minorities. Davis later told the media: "I have told them that until a number of things are concluded - particularly some concerns about the membership of the club, and a review of the club's constitution and a requirement that the club will not promulgate or discuss policies relating to race - the club is suspended from any association with the Conservative party."[2].
On the 10 May 2002, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported that the Club sought to restore its links with the Conservative Party,[3]. The Times reported (2 June 2006) that as the Club "is now slowly nudging back into the mainstream many members feel that it is time to return to the fold", but went on to claim that chairman Lord Sudeley had made what it considered to be racist and Hitler-sympathising remarks which, it asserted, would damage the Club's reputation.
[edit] History
[edit] Foundation
The club was founded on 1 January 1961, by four young Conservative Party members, Paul Bristol, (the first Chairman - who left the Club in 1968), Ian Greig, (Membership Secretary until 1969), Cedric Gunnery,(Treasurer until 1992), and Anthony Maclaren. The 5th Marquess of Salisbury (d.1972), who had resigned from Macmillan's Cabinet over the Prime Minister's liberal direction, became its first president in January 1962, when he stated "there was never a greater need for true conservatism than there is today" [cf.Copping,(ii) p.5]. By the end of 1962, there were eleven Members of the House of Commons in the membership, including Paul Williams, MP, (Club Chairman 1964-1969), Victor Goodhew, MP (St.Albans), John Biggs-Davison, MP, Ronald Bell, MP (South Buckinghamshire), QC, Patrick Wall, MP, as was the former Colonial Secretary, Lord Boyd, who had become a patron. Harold Soref, Victor Montagu, 10th Earl of Sandwich, and Colonel The Lord Barnby, also joined that year. (Enoch Powell was a constant supporter of the Club until his death, although he never took up membership of any pressure group.) Numerous members of the House of Lords also joined.
The national club established itself in offices at 51-53 Victoria Street, a few minutes walk from Westminster Palace. The club was, however, always a pressure group, remaining separate from the Conservative Party organisation.
It tended to be seen as the 'authoritarian' wing of the party, and was hostile toward the Soviet Union, and (from October 1971) British participation in the European Union, and non-white immigration. Professor Richard Rose [p.301] commented that "the Monday Club have sought to change the party's policy in right-wing directions", and it was said to have a disproportionate influence within Conservative circles [cf.Messina, p.138].
In the 1970 Conservative Party election victory, six club Members of Parliament (MPs) were given government positions [cf.Messina, p.138]. They were: Geoffrey Rippon, QC, (Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster), Julian Amery, (Minister for Public Works), John Peyton, (Minister for Transport), Teddy Taylor, (Under-Secretary of State, Scotland), Jasper More, (Vice-Chamberlain, Royal Household), and Victor Goodhew, (Assistant Whip). By 1971, the Club "undoubtedly had the largest membership of any conservative group and included 55 different groups in universities and colleges, 35 Members of Parliament with six in the government, and 35 Peers". [cf.Copping (i) p.14].
In addition to the national club, which operated through an elected Executive Council and numerous policy groups or committees, there were semi-autonomous county branches, a Young Members Monday Club, and numerous university Monday Clubs, the most prominent and active being at Oxford.
[edit] Enoch Powell
Possibly the Monday Club's most consistent supporter was Enoch Powell, who travelled throughout Britain to address it. The respect was mutual, and all his speeches were released to the news agencies accordingly. On the 7 December 1967, he addressed a club dinner at the Savoy Hotel on the subject of defence. In 1971, Jonathan Denby, a club activist, became Powell's Private Secretary. On 12 January 1973, in a speech to the National Monday Club, Powell attacked Harold Wilson's fiscal policies.
Powell rejected power-sharing in Northern Ireland in a speech to the Ulster branch of the MC, made in the bomb-blasted Ulster Unionist HQ in Glengall Street, Belfast, on 11 September 1975. At a major Monday Club meeting in Croydon, Surrey, on 4 October 1976, Enoch Powell urged the British government to find £1 billion for an immigrant repatriation programme, and called immigration "an alien wedge in the cities and urban areas of England".
Back in Northern Ireland on 5 May 1978, Powell again addressed the Monday Club, calling for a nationwide boycott of direct elections to the European Parliament. On 21 July 1978, he addressed the MC again in Wiltshire on immigration. He attacked the Conservative Party as insincere on the subject, and said that, far from being concerned about the British people being "swamped", Mrs. Thatcher was now "no longer concerned about the fears of the indigenous population, but of the immigrant one".
He addressed the Club again in Yorkshire in May 1980, covering several issues, and on 20 April 1985, on the perceived dangers of the European Community (as it then was), where he attacked the Common Agricultural Policy, and said that he did not believe the British people should consent to be a minority in a European electorate. At a MC meeting in Southampton the same year, he argued that he was right to call for repatriation, and remained utterly unrepentant about his previous statements.
Powell was the Guest-of-Honour at the Club's Annual Dinner on 1 November 1985, held at the Café Royal, in Regent Street, London.
On 18 November 1989 he was one of the speakers at the Club's Young Members' Group Annual Conference at the Oxford & Cambridge Club in Pall Mall, and in October 1990, Enoch Powell again addressed a standing-room only Monday Club meeting at the Empire Hotel, Blackpool, during the Conservative Party Conference, when he attacked the European Economic Community and called for Britain's withdrawal.
On his last visit to a Conservative Party Conference at Bournemouth in October 1994, he addressed a Monday Club meeting on Northern Ireland.
[edit] Early political activities
The Monday Club had various study groups (later renamed policy committees) including:
- Immigration and Repatriation: the best-known chairmen being George Kennedy Young, Jonathan Guinness, and K. Harvey Proctor, MP; (John Bercow, now an MP, was committee secretary 1981-82);
- Africa and Rhodesia: Harold Soref, MP;
- Home Affairs: Ian Greig;
- Aviation: Richard Gardner;
- Economics: John Gouriet, George Kennedy Young;
- Ulster: John de Vere Walker, David E.Storey (sometime Club Chairman);
- Taxation: Timothy Hardacre, David Rowell;
- Universities Group: (in 1970-71) Graham Webster-Gardiner (the UKIP candidate at Epsom and Ewell, 2001 General Election), (in 1971-73) Richard Stallabrass,(in 1975) William Perry;
- Defence: The Hon. Archibald Hamilton, MP, Patrick Wall, MP, and Commander Anthony Courteney, OBE (former MP for Harrow East); and
- Foreign Affairs: Geoffrey Stewart-Smith, MP (joined Club 1964), John Carlisle, MP, former British South Africa Police Officer Richard Stallabrass (joined Club 1970), James Mortimer Hall (part 1988 only), and Gregory Lauder-Frost (joined Club 1976) (Secretary 1986-88, Chairman Nov 1988 - May 1992 incl).
During the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) period in Rhodesia, the club strongly backed the white minority rule government of Ian Smith and the Rhodesian Front, being seen as its strongest supporters in Britain. In November 1963, the club had hosted a huge reception for Smith at the Howard Hotel in London. That was followed the next year by receptions for Clifford Dupont and Moise Tshombe.
The theme of the club's 1966 Annual Dinner was 'The Preservation of our National Character'. The dinner, at the Savoy Hotel, was sold out. The Guest of Honour, the famous historian Sir Arthur Bryant, stated that there was only one all-important conservative principle, "the preservation of the national character. Add to this the English tradition and one finds the only two important assets". [cf.Copping, p.10]. Club member Ronald Bell, QC, MP, for South Buckinghamshire, subsequently led the rebels in the Commons against the Race Relations Act.
The Club's fringe meeting at the 1967 Conservative Party Conference attracted over 400 delegates with standing room only, following the club's pronouncement in June that "Tory policies were now little different from neo-socialism". [cf.Copping, p.11].
The Club supported the Duncan Sandys "Peace with Rhodesia" rally in Trafalgar Square in January 1967, and provided 80 stewards. Club MPs Patrick Wall and John Biggs-Davison were platform speakers, and Duncan Sandys was subsequently Guest of Honour that year at the Club's annual dinner. At this time several meetings were held at Caxton Hall, Westminster, the themes of which were 'The Great Betrayal' - a protest against the proposed withdrawal East of Suez, and the Race Relations Act.
The Monday Club made formal complaints for many years over what they saw as left-wing bias at the BBC, which they termed the "Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation". (Some members referred to it as "The Guardian on the air"). In 1968 Harold Soref "gained much valuable publicity by his exposures of leftist bias in the BBC" [cf.Copping (i)p.19), and in June 1969, the Club held a conference at Caxton Hall, Westminster, on The Grip of the Left on the BBC and other media.[cf. Copping, p.17].
An unusual attempt by the Monday Club to influence politics occurred shortly before the 1970 general election. Sandra Bennett, aged 26, who was Secretary to the Monday Club's local branch in York, proposed marriage to Conservative leader Edward Heath, concerned that his image as a bachelor was ruining his political image. The proposal was politely declined.
In January 1971, George Pole, Club Chairman, led a delegation of fifteen members to Rhodesia and South Africa. They were received in Salisbury by Ian Smith and invited to the Prime Minister's home. Mr. Smith was presented with a picture of a Hunter aircraft flying over the Zambesi valley, painted by Richard Gardner, of the Club's Aviation Group. At the Club's annual general meeting in April 1971, a resolution was passed that "The Monday Club is against Britain signing the Treaty of Rome". The same year the Daily Mirror claimed that the Conservative government's decision to sell arms to South Africa] was the result of Monday Club pressure. [cf. Copping,(i)p.22].
Following an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombing at Aldershot, Hampshire, in February 1972, Club MP Jill Knight, called for legislation to outlaw the IRA and its political wing, Sinn Féin. The Monday Club was opposed to the dismantling of the Stormont government in Northern Ireland and the imposition of direct rule. Speaking for the Club, Sir Victor Raikes condemned Edward Heath's ultimatum to Mr.Faulkner, (see Daily Telegraph, March 1972). In July 1972, John Biggs-Davison, MP, called for tough action in Ulster to clean up the 'No-Go' areas. In September 1973, Jill Knight and Harold Soref, MP, again urged the Home Secretary to ban the IRA, and in October John Biggs-Davison asked why the IRA was proscibed in the whole of Ireland, but not on the mainland". [cf.Copping,(ii)pps:5-6 and 9].
In the 1970s, the group had undoubtedly the largest membership of any conservative organisation outside the party itself, with around 10,000 members and 35 Conservative MPs, with a similar number of peers. Opposition from the broad Left mounted. It was claimed by opponents of the club that many members had drawn closer to the National Front, although this was strongly disputed by the administrators of the club. Protests followed and at Leeds University, a demonstration against a visit by Sir Patrick Wall, MC, MP, a leading member and later chairman of the club, turned violent and Wall's wife was knocked to the ground and kicked. Mr.Wall was again attacked and hit by missiles at Portsmouth Polytechnic while addressing a large meeting there in December 1972. [cf.Copping,(i)p.14, (ii) p7)].
On 5 June 1972, the club's National Chairman, George Pole, retired, and Jonathan Guinness, son and heir of Lord Moyne, was elected in his place. Richard Body, MP, came second, and Timothy Stroud third. The next year there was an open clash for the control of the group between the faction led by Jonathan Guinness, and a more radical faction led by George Kennedy Young former deputy director of MI6, who later set up Tory Action. Jonathan Guinness again won the election by a clear 175 votes and became National Chairman for the next two years, when he was replaced by John Biggs-Davison, MP. Subsequent Chairman included Sir Patrick Wall, Westminster City Councillor and Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate Sam Swerling, David Storey, and Dr.Mark Mayall.
1972 was a particularly busy year for the Club. In July, Club officer Harold Soref, MP, had discussions with the Home Office on the 1500 Trotskyists camping in Essex, which included groups from North America. They were, he said, being given instruction in urban guerrilla warfare. Mr.Soref and Patrick Wall, MP, also raised the issue of 'educational kits' being distributed to secondary schools, which were said to contain information on guerilla warfare tactics against the apartheid government of Southern Africa. They described the kits as "subversive Communist propaganda".
In September, the Club held a "Halt Immigration Now!" public meeting in Westminster Central Hall, opposite Parliament, at which the speakers, Ronald Bell, QC, MP, John Biggs-Davison, MP, Harold Soref, MP, and John Heydon Stokes, MP, (all club members) called on the government to halt all immigration, repeal the Race Relations Act (1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act), and start a full repatriation scheme. A resolution was drafted, approved by the meeting, and delivered to the Prime Minister, Edward Heath, who replied that "the government had no intention of repealing the Race Relations Act". When Reginald Maudling resigned from the Cabinet, the Liberal leader, Jeremy Thorpe, commented that "Mr. Heath has been left to wrestle with the Monday Club single-handed." [cf.Copping (ii) p.6-7).
In March 1973, Sir Alec Douglas-Home rejected a proposal by John Biggs-Davison MP, for the Club, that Britain should deduct aid funds from Zambia and Tanzania sufficient to compensate residents of Rhodesia who had been affected by attacks by groups based in Zambia and Tanzania opposed to white minority rule in Rhodesia. In September, Harold Soref, MP, protested to the Home Secretary that a leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), Herbert Chitepo, had received a British passport in error. Mr. Soref also alleged that London housed offices for about 50 revolutionary movements. In December, Harold Soref secured the release of Gerald Hawksworth, who had been imprisoned in Tanzania after being kidnapped by ZANU. [cf.Copping,(ii)pps:8,9,10].
In early 1975, Club member John Heydon Stokes, MP, spoke in the House of Commons against a Labour Private Member's Bill to abolish hereditary titles. He said the Lords were considered "honest, brave and true, they spoke their minds, and this was important in a society dominated by the media and obsessed with the trivial, the trendy, and the so-called progressive." The Bill was defeated. (cf.Copping (ii) p.23).
The Primrose League Gazette carried a two-page speech extract by Club MP, the Rt.Hon. Geoffrey Rippon, QC, in which he said in relation to Rhodesia and South Africa that "I have no doubt that the chances of finding satisfactory solutions have been gravely prejudiced by outside pressures... the imposition of mandatory sanctions on Rhodesia has proved a grave error. A Marxist take-over of Southern Africa will have dire consequences for black and white alike." (Sept/Oct 1977 edition. Edited by William Cash, MP.)
[edit] The Thatcher years
About 1980, the Victoria Street building was cleared for demolition, and the club moved its offices to 122 Newgate Street, London, EC1, opposite the Old Bailey.
On Tuesday 14 July 1981 the club held a public meeting at Caxton Hall, Westminster, on the subject of 'Defence'. The line-up of speakers included: General Sir Harry Tuzo, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, 1976-78; Commander-in-Chief, British Army of the Rhine, 1973-76, Vice-Admiral Sir James Jungius, Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic's Representative in Europe, 1978-80, Vice-Admiral Sir Louis le Bailly, Director-General of Intelligence, Ministry of Defence, 1972-75, and Sir Patrick Wall, MC, MP, Chairman, Military Committee, North Atlantic Assembly.
The Monday Club were prolific publishers of booklets, pamphlets, policy papers, an occasional newspaper, Right Ahead, and a magazine, Monday World edited for some years by Adrian FitzGerald, Sam Swerling, and later, Eleanor Dodd. The September 1984 edition of Monday News carried the headline 'Kinnock Talks to Terrorists', quoting former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock's declaration to the South African African National Congress's Oliver Tambo that the ANC in South Africa could expect financial and material assistance from a future Labour government. Other attacks were made upon then-Greater London Council leader Ken Livingstone inviting Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams to visit London in 1982.
In October 1982, the Monday Club published its latest, slightly revised, policy on immigration. It called for: (1) Scrapping of the Commission for Racial Equality and Community Relations Councils. (2) Repeal of the race relations laws. (3) An end to the use of race or colour as criteria for the distribution of State grants & loans. (4) An end to positive discrimination and all special treatment based upon race or colour. (5) An end to all further large-scale permanent immigration from the New Commonwealth and Pakistan. (6) An improved repatriation scheme with generous resettlement grants for all those from the NCWP countries who wish to take advantage of them. (7) The redesignation of the Ministry of Overseas Aid as a Ministry for Overseas Resettlement.
Due to slack administration, inertia in recruiting, and the continuing Thatcher government, national club membership (as opposed to branch membership) plummeted in the mid-1980s, reaching just under 600 in 1987. Among them was Derek Laud, who was sometimes said to have been the only black member of the club, although in 1988, the Students' Group Chairman was Sanwar Ali. In 1988-9, a group of longstanding members led by Gregory Lauder-Frost, the club's Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, succeeded in getting elected to the key posts on the Executive Council, with Dr. Mark Mayall as Deputy Chairman, and Gregory Lauder-Frost as the Political Secretary. By 1992, the membership was over 1600 again.
The Club's Foreign Affairs Committee, under the chairmanship of Richard Stallabrass, held two major dinners in 1986: the Spring Dinner at the Washington Hotel, Curzon Street, Mayfair, on Monday 9 June, for the Hon. Ian Smith, Prime Minister of Rhodesia, 1964-79, (attended by 120 guests), and the Autumn Dinner at Bailey's Hotel in Gloucester Road, South Kensington, on Monday 29 September, with Denis Walker as the guest-of-honour.
At the Club's 1987 Spring Dinner the Guest-of-Honour was "prominent South African banker", Richard Castle. The Club also held a formal Reception for him at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in Pall Mall on 14 October 1987, when he addressed the gathering on the subject of "The Involvement of Moscow in the ANC".
On 7 October 1988, Gregory Lauder-Frost had a letter on behalf of the Club published in the (London) Wandsworth Borough News outlining the Club's policies on several issues, where he argued that "The Monday Club is NOT an extreme right-wing organisation. It is totally conservative and positions itself right of centre. It is the most prominent pressure-group in this position".
The Club's Foreign Affairs Committee, now under Gregory Lauder-Frost, hosted a major dinner at the Charing Cross Hotel on 26 October 1988, the Guest-of-Honour being Count Nikolai Tolstoy, who had been served with a Writ for libel over his book The Minister and the Massacres and a subsequent pamphlet he had contributed to on the same subject. It was an opportunity for Tolstoy to put his case to a wider audience. Amongst those present were Baron Sudeley, Jonathan Guinness, Denis Walker, Harvey Ward, Gregory Lauder-Frost, and John Fairy of the aircraft manufacturing company, (The Daily Telegraph, 27 October 1988).
On 18 April 1989, during the debates over Hong Kong, the Daily Telegraph reported: "Senior officials in the Hong Kong government indicated that they would like to see large numbers of - and perhaps even all - the colony's 5.8 million residents given British passports entitling them to live permanently in Britain." The Monday Club immediately attacked this proposal in the South China Morning Post, and stated in a Press Release that if accepted by the UK government it totally contradicted their 1987 General Election Manifesto commitment which stated that "We will tighten the existing law, to ensure that the control over settlement becomes even more effective". Gregory Lauder-Frost subsequently addressed a Monday Club Young Members' Group fringe meeting on this subject at the Young Conservatives Conference at Torquay on 1 February 1990. In April 1990, the Club produced a Policy Paper entitled Hong Kong - The Threat to British Interests authored by Dr. Mark Mayall, then the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Oxford East. Between 24 - 29 April Lauder-Frost himself was in Hong Kong, Canton and adjoining provinces, and Macau, on a "fact-finding" mission.
Lauder-Frost chaired another Foreign Affairs Committee Club dinner on 5 June 1989, again at the Charing Cross Hotel, for Dr. Andries Treurnicht, leader of the pro-apartheid right-wing South African Conservative Party, (refer: The Daily Telegraph and The Independent Court & Social pages, 6 June 1989). That was followed by the Club's Sir John Biggs-Davison Memorial Dinner at the Café Royal on 17 July. Miss L. Biggs-Davison, the late MP's daughter, was the Guest-of-Honour at the latter event, and Sir Patrick Wall made a speech.
On 7 September 1989, the club denounced "the disgraceful Anglo-Irish Agreement". [cf:The Sun]. With the question of German reunification to the fore, an article in The Independent on Sunday on 4 March 1990 quoted a document circulated to all Conservative MPs by Lauder-Frost on behalf of the Monday Club calling for the restoration of the German borders as they were on 1 January 1938, arguing that there must be "no gains for communism". [This would have involved a revision of the de-facto 1945 Polish-German border]. The Club argued this was in keeping with the Potsdam Conference decision that final borders whould be decided by an international conference for the final and formal Peace Treaty and in order to prevent future conflict. The Club had, in the 1960s, been opposed to the Yalta settlement, (See Robert Copping vols. I & II).
That was followed by the publication of the Monday Club Foreign Affairs Committee Policy Paper in May 1990 entitled Proposals for the U.K. Government on Foreign Policy. Like all policy papers, a copy was sent to each Conservative MP. As well as calling for final decisions on post-1945 European borders, it covered the Commonwealth of Nations, the European Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Environment, the Republic of Ireland, Southern Africa, the United Nations, terrorism, Asia, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The Rt.Hon. Kenneth Baker, MP, was the Guest-of-Honour at the Club's Spring Dinner at the Café Royal, on Tuesday 27 March 1990.
The club had been opponents, since 1971, of what was soon to become the European Union (EU), which Lauder-Frost termed "the new Soviet bloc". In October 1990, Lauder-Frost shared an anti-EU platform with Enoch Powell at a Monday Club meeting at the Empire Hotel, Blackpool, during the Conservative Party Conference, which was filmed and featured on BBC TV's Newsnight programme.
At the beginning of January 1991, the Monday Club News announced the abolition of the only salaried position, that of Director, (then held by the Club's Treasurer, Cedric Gunnery, one of the Club's founders), and the club's office was moved to new premises, belonging to W. Denis Walker, opposite Highams Park railway station, with new telephone numbers, and a new Post Office Box number in central London. The newsletter stated that "it is our long-term aim to relocate back to the very heart of London".
The Club's Executive Council in January 1991 (as from the April 1990 annual general meeting), consisted of: David E Storey (Chairman), Dr. Mark Mayall (Deputy Chairman/later Chairman until May 1994), Andrew Hunter, MP, (Vice-Chairman), Cedric Gunnery (Treasurer), Gregory Lauder-Frost (Political Secretary & Chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee), W. Denis Walker (Membership Secretary), Rod Morris (Chairman of Young Members Group), Michael Clack (Chairman of Students' Group); ordinary council members: Anthony Murphy (Chairman of Yorkshire branch), accountant Brian Danes, Dr. Harvey Ward, barrister-at-law Brian Rathbone, Chartered surveyor Michael Keith Smith (now chairman of the Conservative Democratic Alliance), former police chief Ken Dixon, Edward Attewell, Rt. Hon. James Molyneaux, MP (Ulster delegate), auditor Christopher Forster, school-mistress Eleanor Dodd, solicitor Sam Swerling, barrister-at-law Michael McCrone, and Medical Research Council scientist John P. Bullen Stean (Chairman of Media Committee).
In 1991, 22 Conservative MPs and numerous Peers had either full or honorary membership in the Club, including: Julian Amery, Peter Bottomley, Michael Brown, John Carlisle, Clifford Forsythe, Ivan Lawrence QC, Antony Marlow, William Ross, Peter Rost, Angela Rumbold, Martin Smyth, John D Taylor (see John David Taylor, Baron Kilclooney), Andrew Hunter (Vice-Chairman), Terry Dicks, Tim Janman, Gerald Howarth, Neil Hamilton, Nicholas Winterton, the Duke of Somerset, the Marquess of Anglesey, Viscount Massereene and Ferrard, and the Earl of Lauderdale. The following Vice-Presidents were on the Club's headed notepaper at that time also: Sir Horace Cutler, OBE, DL, (former leader of the Greater London Council), Professor Anthony de Crespigny, The Earl of Enniskillen, MBE, Professor Antony Flew, George Gardiner, MP, Evelyn Mansfield King, (former MP), Professor Patrick Minford, The Rt. Hon. James Molyneaux, PC, JP, MP (then leader of the Ulster Unionist Party), George Pole, (former Club Chairman), The 7th Baron Sudeley, Teddy Taylor, MP, and Paul Williams (former MP and Club Chairman).
[edit] Change of administration
Personal and legal problems forced Lauder-Frost's departure on 31 May 1992, and with that and the Conservative Party's poor re-election, the Club descended into in-fighting, with more departures and failed expulsion attempts costing it huge legal bills. Control passed effectively into the hands of The Hon. W. Denis Walker, a former Minister for Education in the Rhodesian government. He changed the role of the club from a pressure group to a Conservative Party support group, bringing in a rule that all members must firstly be members of the party, something that prior to 1992 had been constantly and unanimously opposed.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard, the club's current president (as was his father before him), has been quoted as saying, "If you say I am a racist, yes I certainly am, and proud of it". Part of its agenda stresses support for what it claims are "traditional Conservative values", including "resistance to 'political correctness'". Most traditionalists who left or lapsed after 1992 have been refused re-entry to the Club and even to its occasional meetings. The current club chairman is the 7th Baron Sudeley.
In October 2001, Conservative Party chairman David Davis "formally suspended" the club's affiliation with the party, due to the Club's policies on race relations. The Club, however, had always been entirely autonomous and their views on immigration had not changed for decades. Three MPs Andrew Hunter, Andrew Rosindell and Angela Watkinson, were ordered to resign from the Monday Club.
At the following Club Annual General meeting in April 2002 members approved two motions proposed by Michael Keith Smith, (also Chairman of the Conservative Democratic Alliance), one reaffirming the Club's opposition to mass immigration, and another empowering Club officers to institute legal action against the Conservative Party following the Club's 'suspension' by them. A third motion, calling for the sacking of John Bercow, then shadow Chief Secretary, and former Monday Club member, for his "hypocrisy" was defeated. (Refer: The Independent, 18 May 2002).
In The Sunday Telegraph (19 May 2002) former Club activist Stuart Millson had the leading letter with the headline A Left turn won't set the Tories right. He attacked journalist Matthew d'Ancona's (May 12) "handbagging of the beleaguered Monday Club", arguing that the recent Conservative Party suspension of links with the Club would not achieve anything for the party.
The Monday Club, now having changed its original raison d'être as a pressure group, and whose membership is now said to be back below 600, now has very little influence on the agenda of the Conservative Party. Many of its former members are now in the Conservative Democratic Alliance.
[edit] Controversies and criticism
The playwright David Edgar described it in an academic essay as "proselytis[ing] the ancient and venerable conservative traditions of paternalism, imperialism and racism." [cf.Levitas, p.60]. Roger Griffin [p.161] refers to the Club as practising an anti-socialist and elitist form of conservatism. It has been described as "far-right" by journalists in newspapers across the political spectrum from the Daily Telegraph to The Guardian and, in May 2002, the BBC reported it had become "in more recent years, a bastion on the Tory hard right", [4].
[edit] Removal of David Story as Chairman
The chairman, David Story, lost an almost unanimous vote of no confidence on 17 January 1991, and his membership was terminated by the Club's Executive Council on 11 February on the grounds that "he has engaged in behaviour prejudiced to the best interests, reputation, objects, and other members of the Monday Club; by abusing his position as Chairman in encouraging members to leave the Monday Club and to join a new political group". [cf. Club's Minutes].
[edit] Press criticism
The club has been described as "far-right" by journalists in newspapers across the political spectrum from the Daily Telegraph to The Guardian and, in 2002, as a "bastion on the Tory hard right" by the British Broadcasting Corporation[5].
On 24 February 1991, The Observer ran a lengthy article entitled, "Far Right takes over the Monday Club", noting that a number of senior members had tendered their resignations to protest the Club's takeover by "extreme right-wingers" associated with the Western Goals Institute. Sir George Gardiner (a close personal friend of the ousted chairman, David Storey), and Julian Amery were among those who resigned, claiming, the press reported, that the Club "was becoming more extreme and no longer enjoyed their full support" (The Guardian, 29 January 1991). There are reports that Amery subsequently withdrew his resignation, and remained within the Club. Marc Gordon, director of the libertarian International Freedom Foundation, claimed that the Club's shift to the right, "moved the extremists from the outer fringe to deep penetration of the Tory Party, giving them a platform of which previously they could only dream" (The Observer, 24 February 1991).
The Club's solicitors, Rubenstein, Callingham & Gale, sent a formal letter of protest to the editor of the Observer about the article, and demanded a right-of-reply for the Club. The editor agreed and Lauder-Frost, writing on behalf of the Club, subsequently challenged the article's accusations in a Letter to the Editor, which was published the following Sunday. He denied that a takeover had occurred, and claimed that the Club's direction was consistent with its aims and historical principles.
At this point the Earl of Southesk, already a long-standing member, became a further Vice-President. [cf.Club Minutes & correspondence].
[edit] Allegations of BBC bias by the Club
The Club for decades had campaigned against what they said was bias at the BBC. Gregory Lauder-Frost was interviewed by Garry Bushell in The Sun on 27 March 1991 when he stated, on behalf of the Club, that "the BBC does not support the British people" and of "history being rewritten by left-wing trendies".
On 4 April 1991, the London Evening Standard carried a front-page attack by the Monday Club against the proposed appointment of Janet Street-Porter as the BBC's Head of Arts and Culture. The media enthusiastically reported this debate and a large piece appeared the following day in the Daily Mail where Conservative MP and Club member John Carlisle also said she should not be appointed. That Street-Porter did not get the job was seen by some as a victory for members of the Club, and particularly Gregory Lauder-Frost, who initiated the protests.
[edit] Other
On 14 June 1991, the New Statesman magazine noted that MP Norman Tebbit had cancelled a scheduled speech at a Monday Club dinner (one hour before he was due) in order to attend a parliamentary vote on dangerous dogs legislation. The magazine speculated that Tory Central Office would have disapproved of his speech, writing "Tebbit's chosen subject, the future of Conservativism, addressed to a far-right audience, could only cause trouble". Lord Sudeley spoke in Tebbit's place on preserving the House of Lords and the Book of Common Prayer, and criticized the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey. Prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate for Oxford East, Dr. Mark Mayall then delivered a speech attacking multiculturalism, which was met with applause from those present. The article quotes Gregory Lauder-Frost as saying to the reporter at the end of the dinner: "You see? We're not skinheads. I don't know why they call us fascists". (New Statesman, 14 June 1991, p. 5)
Lauder-Frost subsequently accused the magazine of "editing [his] comments out of all proportion", and wrote, "Are you suggesting that all indigenous citizens of this country who do not agree with multiculturalism, European federalism, etc., the subversion of our great institutions such as the established Churches and the destruction of the House of Lords are 'fascists'? You should make yourself perfectly clear." The editor replied, "I will. To use Mr. L-F's phraseology, no such inference was implied". (New Statesman, 28 June 1991, p.25).
In the October 1991 Conservative Party Conference edition of the Conservative Graduates' glossy magazine, Commentary, a half-page recruitment advertisement for the Club called for the retention of Full National Sovereignty (anti-EU), Stopping Immigration including 'refugees', a Christian Britain, retention of adequate defence forces, complete abolition of all capital taxation, a "non-communist" South Africa, strong trading ties with "our kith and kin" abroad, and absolute support for the Union (i.e: United Kingdom). They said the Club believed in a modern, but traditional Britain.
In October 1991, a Monday Club delegation under the auspices of the Club's Foreign Affairs Committee, travelled to observe the war between Serbia and Croatia, (see The Times), the first British political delegation to observe that conflict. Conservative MPs Andrew Hunter (Club member) and Roger Knapman, then a junior minister in the Conservative government (and now leader of the UK Independence Party), and Count Nikolai Tolstoy, were part of the delegation which, after going to the front lines, was entertained by President Franjo Tudjman and the Croatian government in Zagreb. On October 13, the group held a Press Conference at the Hotel Intercontinental in Zagreb, which apart from the media, was also attended by delegates from the French government. A report on the Serbian aggression was agreed and handed in to Number 10 Downing Street by Andrew Hunter.
The Daily Telegraph carried a letter (9 October 1991) by Lauder-Frost on behalf of the Club opposing the "unacceptable" immigrant levels and called for the "strictest possible entry to Britain for those of other cultures". He asked "why were Karl Marx and Lenin, purveyors of evil which later turned to tyranny and murder allowed to come here? Are we always the nearest 'free' country?"
On 7 December 1991, the Monday Club held a seminar at Westminster Central Hall. The two main topics were 'British Identity' and 'British Sovereignty'. On 21 January 1992, Conservative MP, Alan Clark, then a junior minister for Defence, addressed a standing-room-only parliamentary meeting of the Club in a committee room at Westminster.
Cedric Gunnery, a Club founder, Paul Williams, Gregory Lauder-Frost, and Denis Walker were all invited guests at Alec Douglas-Home's (Lord Home of the Hirsel) Memorial Service at Westminster Abbey on Monday, 22 January 1996.
[edit] References
- Gregory Lauder-Frost, former Political Secretary of the Club (holds substantial archives).
- Copping, Robert, No Punches Pulled - Britain Today, Current Affairs Information Service (CAIS), Ilford, Essex, n/d but probably circa 1970 (P/B).
- Copping, Robert, The Story of The Monday Club - The First Decade, (i) (Foreword by George Pole), Current Affairs Information Service, Ilford, Essex, April 1972 (P/B).
- Copping, Robert, The Monday Club - Crisis and After, (foreword by John Biggs-Davison, MP), (ii) CAIS, Ilford, May 1975 (P/B).
- Rose, Professor Richard, Politics in England - Persistence and Change, London, 1st published 1965. 4th edition 1985, p.301, ISBN 0-571-13830-6
- Levitas, Ruth, (editor), The Ideology of the New Right, Cambridge, 1986, ISBN 0-7456-0190-1
- Messina, Anthony M., Race and Party Competition in Britain, Clarendon Press, 1989, p.138, ISBN 0-19-827534-X
- Griffin, Roger, The Nature of Fascism, London, 1991, p.161. ISBN 0-86187-112X
- Heffer, Simon, Like the Roman - The Life of Enoch Powell, London, 1998, ISBN 0-297-84286-2 (many references to the Monday Club).
- Coxall, Bill, and Lynton Robins, Contemporary British Politics, Macmillan Press, Basingstoke, 1993 reprint, (P/B), Monday Club profile on p.239. ISBN 0-333-34046-9
[edit] Monday Club publications
See List of Conservative Monday Club publications.
[edit] External link
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk_politics/1584463.stm Tory MPs resign from far-right club
- ^ Tories suspend link with Monday Club
- ^ Right-wing club appeals for Tory return
