Monday Club

The Monday Club is a conservative British pressure group formed at the time of Harold Macmillan's "Winds of Change" speech in opposition to the drift of the Conservative Party towards liberalism. The Club's first pamphlet was against the "Winds of Change".

It was founded on 1 January 1961, by Paul Bristol, Ian Greig, Cedric Gunnery, and Anthony Maclaren. The 5th Marquess of Salisbury (d.1972) became its first President. By the end of 1963 there were 11 Members of Parliament in the membership, plus the former Colonial Secretary, Lord Boyd, who had become a patron.

It tended to be seen as the "authoritarian" wing of the party, and was very active on the issue of non-European immigration. Harold Wilson, twice British Prime Minister, called it "the conscience of the Tory Party".

However, it was always a pressure group remaining completely separate from the party. During the Rhodesian Crisis it strongly backed the government of Ian Smith, being seen as its strongest supporters in Britain. In November 1963 the Club hosted a huge Reception for Ian Smith. The theme of the Club's 1966 Annual Dinner was 'The Preservation of our National Character', the dinner, at the Savoy, being sold out. Club member Ronald Bell, Q.C., M.P.for South Bucks, subsequently led the rebels in the Commons against the Race Relations Bill. In June 1967 the Club made a public pronouncement that "Tory policies were little different from neo-socialism".

In the 1970s the group had undoubtedly the largest membership of any conservative organisation outside the party itself, with around 10,000 members and over 40 Conservative MPs, with a similar number of peers. It was said by opponents of the Club that many members drew closer to the far-right National Front, though this was disputed by the administrators of the Club. National Front members stewarded several Monday Club meetings, most notably an anti-immigration rally in September 1972. Following this news, the far-left led protests against several members. At Leeds University, a protest against a visit by Sir Patrick Wall, a leading light in the club, turned violent and Mrs. Wall was knocked to the ground and allegedly kicked.

Nevertheless, the next year there was an open clash for the control of the group between the faction led by Jonathan Guinness, son of Lord Moyne, and a more radical faction led by George Kennedy Young former deputy director of MI6 who later set up Tory Action. Jonathan Guinness won and became Chairman of the Monday Club for several years, later being replaced by Sir Patrick Wall, MC,MP, Westminster City Councillor & Tory PPC Sam Swerling, and David Storey.

Due to inactivity, inertia and the Thatcher government, throughout the 1980s membership plummetted, reaching under 600 in 1987. In 1988 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, with Dr.Mark Mayall as Chairman. Frantic activity from that point onwards to restore the club's position as a key political player ensued, with some success, and by 1992 the membership was over 1600 again.

A personal domestic crisis forced Lauder-Frost's departure on 31st 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 court costs. Control passed effectively into the hands of W. Denis Walker, a former junior minister 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 unanimously opposed.

In October 2001, Conservative Party chairman David Davis "formally suspended" the Party's affiliation with the Club, due to the Club's perceived inflammatory views on race. Although some saw this as a meaningless media stunt, to many it was a positive sign that the Conservatives were cleaning up their image. Three MPs Andrew Hunter, Andrew Rosindell and Angela Watkinson, were ordered to resign from the Monday Club.

At the time, a Conservative Central Office source said that the club would have to rewrite its constitution to remove any reference to race and immigration. The Monday Club now has very little influence on the agenda of the Tory Party. Its membership is said to be around 600.

Viscount Massereene and Ferrard, the club's 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 traditional Conservative values, including "resistance to 'political correctness'". But importantly, 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.

External link

• Official site (http://www.conservativeuk.com/)