Swinton Circle
The London Swinton Circle (aka the Swinton Circle) is a British pressure group with links to the Conservative Party. It states that it stands for "traditional Conservative and Unionist principles"
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[edit] History and membership
The London Swinton Circle was founded in 1961 by Conservatives who had attended Party training schools at Swinton Castle in Yorkshire, and who wished to maintain contact through regular meetings in London. A prominent early member was Roger Moate MP.[1]
The Swinton Circle was run for many years by Mrs Bee Carthew.[1] Carthew had previously run the Powellight Association in support of Enoch Powell during the late sixties and early seventies.[2] An executive member of the Monday Club with George Kennedy Young, she was expelled from the Club in 1974 as part of a purge made by Jonathan Guinness.[3] She briefly joined the National Front before later rejoining the Conservative Party.[4] During the seventies and eighties the Swinton Circle was aligned with the Monday Club, Tory Action and WISE (Welsh Irish Scottish English), all of which Carthew was associated with. At the beginning of the nineties the Swinton Circle was run by Adrian Davies of Tory Action.
Since 1992 the Swinton Circle has been run by Allan Robertson, a former Chairman of the Scottish Monday Club and a former contributing editor of Right Now! magazine. Under Robertson the restriction on members also being members of the Conservative Party was withdrawn in the mid-1990s , with the group then widening its membership to include those from the United Kingdom Independence Party and the Democratic Unionist Party to reflect the division in the Conservative Party over Europe and the maintenance of the Union. This led to the later infiltration of the group by members of the National Democrats such as Ian Anderson, Gary Cartwright and Bill Binding. Revelations about Binding's extreme right past led to a motion in Parliament.[5] During the noughties members of the Circle were involved with the Conservative Democratic Alliance and the Springbok Club[6] both of which Robertson was associated with.
The Circle publishes a monthly members' newsletter Tough Talking From The Right.[7]
[edit] Right-wing pressure group
The chief significance of the Swinton Circle today is that, following the repudiation of the Monday Club by the Conservative Party Leadership, the Circle is now the only right-wing pressure group to enjoy the favour of the Party, which permits MPs and other senior figures to address its meeting. (Conservative MPs are forbidden to be members of the Monday Club or to address its meetings) [8][9]
[edit] Rival group
Following his expulsion from the Swinton Circle in 2008, Alan Harvey along with Gary Cartwright, a former National Democrats candidate and organiser [10][11] and regular contributor to holocaust denier David Irving's historical revisionist Focal Point website [12][13][14] began using the Swinton Circle name in 2009 as a front for the 'Springbok Club'; the Club has been described by Johann Hari as a "racist organisation"[15]. Harvey "claimed he was in charge of the Swinton Circle and even called meetings, however as they rapidly degenerated into occasions for him to attack anyone he felt like, they have not been a great success".[16] The two groups clashed at a meeting featuring Philip Hollobone MP, with members of the London Swinton Circle being barred from attending. Harvey later told Searchlight magazine that he had "won" in his struggle against the Swinton Circle.[17]. Alan Harvey has recently linked up with Canadian neo-Nazi William John Beattie[18] [19].
[edit] References
- ^ a b Peter Barberis, John McHugh, Mike Tyldesley entry on London Swinton Circle Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations Continuum International Publishing Group (2005) p185
- ^ Peter Barberis, John McHugh, Mike Tyldesley entry on Powellight Association Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations Continuum International Publishing Group (2005) p192
- ^ Walker, Martin The National Front fontana Second Edition (1978) p131
- ^ Peter Barberis, John McHugh, Mike Tyldesley entry on Powellight AssociationEncyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations Continuum International Publishing Group (2005) p192
- ^ Early Day Motion 2001
- ^ various entries on Springbok club website
- ^ Swinton Circle. "TTFTR". Swinton Circle. http://swintoncircle.org.uk/8.html. Retrieved 2010-04-02.
- ^ "Democracy? It's a mockery". Daily Mirror. 2001-08-31. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/columnists/routledge/2001/08/31/democracy--it-s-a-mockery-89520-11272064/. Retrieved 2010-04-02.
- ^ Antony Barnett and Paul Harris (2002-04-28). "Tory leader's trail of links to global extreme Right". London: The Observer. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2002/apr/28/uk.conservatives. Retrieved 2010-04-02.
- ^ "''The Flag'' no. 106 1999". 7 February 2002. Archived from the original on 7 February 2002. http://web.archive.org/web/20020207030742/http://www.natdems.org.uk/f106t1.htm. Retrieved 3 September 2010.
- ^ "''The Flag'' no. 105 1999". 7 February 2002. Archived from the original on 7 February 2002. http://web.archive.org/web/20020207023313/http://www.natdems.org.uk/f105t1.htm. Retrieved 18 May 2010.
- ^ "Focal Point Website". Fpp.co.uk. 14 June 2001. http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/01/06/Dambusters2.html. Retrieved 18 May 2010.
- ^ "Focal Point Website". Fpp.co.uk. http://www.fpp.co.uk/Letters/History_03/Cartwright140903.html. Retrieved 18 May 2010.
- ^ "Focal Point Website". Fpp.co.uk. http://www.fpp.co.uk/Letters/History_04/Cartwright050204.html. Retrieved 18 May 2010.
- ^ Johann Hari in The Independent 31 July 2009
- ^ The Flag Issue 141 2009
- ^ Searchlight no 427 Janauary 2011 p20
- ^ http://www.britishpeoplesleague.com/?e=126
- ^ Springbok Cyber Newsletter July 2011
