UKIP Uncovered

UKIP Uncovered
What motivates the leaders of the United Kingdom Independence Party?

Sunday, April 27, 2003

Exploring the UK Independence Party Leader's Conservative Monday Club Connections

Quoting UKIP General Secretary Michael Harvey one month ago “All UKIP Candidates and Party Officers are required to sign a declaration which includes the following: ‘I have never engaged in or advocated or condoned racist, violent, criminal or anti-democratic activity nor have I ever been a member of or had any links with any such organisation or group, association with which the National Executive Committee [of UKIP] considers is liable to bring the Party into disrepute.’ The BNP falls into this category, so any person with any links with the BNP would most certainly not be welcome in UKIP.”

All source material that follows is available to all from the Internet and appropriate links are provided.

The following is an excerpt from a web page of Euro-realist meetings still available on the internet at the link below:-

EURealist Diary-Updates

“Wednesday 9 October 12.15 Connaught Hotel, West Hill, Bournemouth Adrian
davies (Barrister) Aidan Rankin (right wing writer), Sam Swirling (former
Pres. Monday Club), Derek Turner (Ed. Right Now!) Ashley Mote (author),
Roger Knapman (Leader-elect, UKIP_ (Right wing action group within the
Conservative Monday Club)”

Note the details of the meeting must have been provided before the actual election of Roger Knapman to the UKIP leadership which took place just a few days before the lunch at the Scarbororough Conference 4-6th October.

The Group is described as a Right wing action group within the renowned right wing club, already then with its links to the Tories cut by that party, but nevertheless still describing itself as the Conservative Monday Club. Some links and comments on the Monday Club follow:-

Telegraph Article

A spokesman for Conservative Central Office said: "We have no comment to make on this sort of politics." Under Mr Duncan Smith, the Conservative Party suspended its links with the Monday Club, saying it had to prove its non-racist credentials.
The party leadership said the organisation should amend its membership and constitution to avoid race and immigration issues or face permanent exclusion.

Telegraph News Item

Michael Howard, the shadow chancellor, confirmed the move yesterday. "It is right to say that three MPs have been asked to resign from the Monday Club.
He added: "Some of its views in the past have been extremist. There is no room for extremist views in the Conservative Party," he told the BBC's On the Record programme.
Breaking the party's links with the Monday Club follows Mr Duncan Smith's declaration in an interview with The Telegraph on Saturday that he will have "no truck with racists" in the party.
David Davis, the Tory chairman, is due to meet Viscount Massereene and Ferrard, the president of the Monday Club, to discuss the group's links with the party.
He will seek assurances that the club's policies are in line with Mr Duncan Smith's ambition to make the party more attractive to people from ethnic minorities.
If no agreement is reached the chairman may ask the club to stop describing itself officially as the Conservative Monday Club, and may rule that belonging to it is incompatible with membership of the Tory party.

DT Legal Threat

THE Conservative Party faces the threat of legal action by Monday Club members after suspending its links with the organisation.
Senior figures inside the club say they have taken advice and believe that Iain Duncan Smith, the Tory leader, has acted outside the law.
They are demanding an immediate injunction compelling the party to consider representations from the club, a postal ballot of the club membership to decide the shape of a court fight, and an emergency meeting.
The move is a potential embarrassment to Mr Duncan Smith who has ordered the organisation to amend its membership and constitution to avoid race and immigration issues, or face permanent exclusion from the party.
David Davis, the party chairman, said the Monday Club had to prove its non-racist credentials. But Sam Swerling, a solicitor and former chairman of the Monday Club, said: "I don't believe the Tory party has gone through any of the proper procedures. And I question the ability of Mr Duncan Smith to take arbitrary action against people who are accepted as Tory party members."

Guardian Report

A central office source said last night the club would have to rewrite its constitution to remove any reference to race and immigration, and the change would have to be agreed by the 700 members. "If they fail to do that, they will be out permanently; and then we will look at the question of people who are members of the club and of the party."
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard, the club's president, Lord Sudeley, its chairman, and Denis Walker, a member of its executive, said they would consider the leadership's demands.

Times Extract

Monday Club Right plans to challenge suspension
Melissa Kite, Times, 03 Apr 2002
DISAFFECTED right-wing Tories are threatening to take legal action against Iain Duncan Smith to contest Conservative Party sanctions against the Monday Club.
Hardliners in the club are lobbying other grassroots Conservatives to support the court challenge, The Times has learnt. The hardliners have formed a new pressure group, the Conservative Democratic Alliance, and say that they have 600 supporters who are furious at the direction in which Mr Duncan Smith is taking the party.
At this May's annual general meeting of the Monday Club the group will table a series of motions calling for the Tory party to reassert its right-wing credentials.

epolitix report

Right wingers to challenge Monday Club ban
Right wing Tories are threatening a legal challenge to Iain Duncan Smith after the Conservative leader took action to suspend the Monday Club.
Six hundred hardliners have formed a new Tory pressure group, the Conservative Democratic Alliance, angry at the new direction of the party.
Tory MPs and Central Office contacts with the club were severed last October after a row over racism.

The Monday Club was ordered to rewrite its constitution and expel racist members.

Published: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 01:00:00 UTC

epolitix report

Hardline Tories are threatening a legal challenge to Iain Duncan Smith's decision to suspend the right wing Monday Club.
Six hundred Conservatives have formed a new pressure group, the Conservative Democratic Alliance, and are angry at the new direction he is leading the party.
Tory MPs and Central Office contacts with the club, which included several Conservative MPs among its members, were severed last October after a row over racist material on its website.

The Observer

A number of right-wing groups flutter on the fringes of the Tory party, giving their support to Duncan Smith. One is the Swinton Circle, a bland name hiding a set of hard-right ideologies on immigration and the EU. The Circle has links with the Springbok Club, a group of supporters of the South African apartheid regime, and is led by Alan Harvey, a former NF activist.
It backed Duncan Smith for leader, because he was 'pro-capital punishment, voted against the age of homosexual consent being reduced from 21 and opposed legalisation of cannabis'.
An active member of the Circle and one of its former leaders was Bill Binding, who was deputy head of the British Ku Klux Klan. Last October, he expressed his admiration for Duncan Smith and has now rejoined the Tories.
In 1997, Binding stood as a BNP parliamentary candidate in Dagenham, east London. He now says he quit the KKK four years ago after concluding that all races were genetically alike.
Tories claim the views of Duncan Smith supporters do not mean the leader shares them. They also point to the fact that under him the Monday Club - which favours a ban on coloured immigration and, like the BNP, wants 'properly financed voluntary repatriation' - has been banned from the Tory party.
This may be so, but it wasn't very long ago that one of Duncan Smith's Shadow Cabinet stars was a leading light in the Monday Club.

Time to take another look at the guest list of that Bournemouth 9th October luncheon. Could it have been a celebration to mark the new position of a right wing stalwart?

Wednesday 9 October 12.15 Connaught Hotel, West Hill, Bournemouth Adrian
davies (Barrister) Aidan Rankin (right wing writer), Sam Swirling (former
Pres. Monday Club), Derek Turner (Ed. Right Now!) Ashley Mote (author),
Roger Knapman (Leader-elect, UKIP_ (Right wing action group within the
Conservative Monday Club)

Some Links and information on Derek Turner

Right Wing Groups
Quote
Right Now! (right-wing Tory)
A quarterly journal launched in 1993 and now the most influential magazine on the Conservative far right. It brings together former BNP and NF fascists and the authoritarian right of the Conservative Party. First editor was (Ralph) Michael Harrison, a long-time racist and associate of the late Dowager Lady Jane Birdwood, a longtime racist activist. Was replaced in 1995 by Derek Turner, who had been leader of the Irish nazi group, the Social Action Initiative. Right Now! is obsessed by race and has been instrumental in reintroducing eugenics and race science into the British right. In 2000, Taki Theodoracopulos, the right-wing Greek socialite, became the magazine's publisher.
Right Now! has regularly promoted race scientists, who claim that black people are genetically inferior to whites. It is also connected to several European fascist groups including the Front National in France and the Alleanza Nazionale of Italy.
Unquote

Visit the web site of the magazine from the link below:-

Right Now

Read an interview with Mr Turner

Turner Interview

An Article by Aidan Rankin

Read Aidan Rankin Anti-facism is the new Facism

A visit to Google Search Engine and entering the name of certain of the luncheon attendees will take one to a variety of pages of published articles with connotations that do not seem to sit entirely comfortably with UKIP's description of itself:-

The UK Independence Party is an inclusive party and is guided by the principle of non-discrimination: we seek the support of persons of all races and religions who share our aims. The Party’s commitment to non-discrimination receives special protection in the constitution. The Party has recently advertised in media like the African Caribbean Voice newspaper and the Jewish Chronicle to highlight the threats posed by the EU to minorities. The Party consists of former Socialists, Conservatives and Social Democrats.

UKIP's statement of AIMS taken from its web site:-

THE UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY IS THE ONLY DEMOCRATIC, NON-RACIST, NON-SECTARIAN POLITICAL PARTY TO ADVOCATE BRITAIN'S WITHDRAWAL FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION.

And furthermore, as quoted at the start of this posting, requires all its Candidates and Party Officers to sign a declaration which includes the following:-

"I have never engaged in or advocated or condoned racist, violent, criminal or anti-democratic activity nor have I ever been a member of or had any links with any such organisation or group, association with which the National Executive Committee [of UKIP] considers is liable to bring the Party into disrepute."

posted by Martin |2:23 AM