Western Goals Institute

The Western Goals Institute (WGI) was a conservative pressure group in Britain, re-formed in 1989 from Western Goals UK, which originated in 1985 as an offshoot of the U.S. Western Goals Foundation. Its stated intent was anti-communism, although the group was also known for its opposition to non-white immigration into Europe and Britain.

The Institute and its predecessor were affiliated with the World Anti-Communist League. In July 1990, WGI sent a delegation to the 22nd WACL Conference in Brussels and from 1991 WGI was the UK chapter of the senior World League. In 1992 the World League declined to be further associated with the Institute.^{[citation needed]} The group was disbanded in 2001.

early aims

The Western Goals Institute was founded (as Western Goals UK) in May 1985 as the British branch of the American organisation the Western Goals Foundation. In March 1987 Western Goals UK had filed a complaint with the Charity Commission for England and Wales against three major British charities, Oxfam, War on Want, and Christian Aid claiming that they were involved in political campaigning work (which was then contrary to UK charity law) in support of left-wing organizations due to their campaigns against apartheid in South Africa. The Charities Commission partially upheld the Western Goals complaint, obliging War on Want (which at the time was led by Labour MP George Galloway) to halt political campaigning.

In line with the ‘Reagan doctrine’ policies of its American patrons, Western Goals UK had established links with militant, and often violent, anti-Communist groups internationally. These include the Angolan UNITA movement (in October 1988 Western Goals facilitated the visit to London of UNITA’s leader, Jonas Savimbi) and the Salvadoran Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party, whose leader, Roberto D’Aubuisson, became, along with US Major General John K. Singlaub, the group’s international patrons. It was also claimed that Western Goals may have been used by its U.S. partners as a conduit for funds to the Nicaraguan Contras following the ‘Contragate’ scandal.

At the Western Goals Institute 'El Salvador' Presidential Dinner, London, 25 September 1989. L to R: Denis Walker, Lord Sudeley, El Salvador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Acevedo Peralta, Andrew Smith (yellow tie), Dr. Harvey Ward

As a result of their expanding activities, membership and organisation, Western Goals UK was relaunched in 1989, becoming the Western Goals Institute, independent of the U.S. foundation. The Institute's stated aims were to "combat the insidious menace of liberalism and Communism within all sectors of British society" and its initial activities included denouncing what it described as "extremist" left-wing Labour Party candidates. In addition 1989 was the year it formed close links with the Conservative Party of South Africa which it saw as fighting communism in the form of the ANC.

Initially, the Western Goals Institute drew some support from Conservative parliamentarians. The London magazine City Limits (21 June 1990) stated that "Western Goals is talking the same blunt authoritarian language as many Tory backbenchers and rank and file Tories. It is a group to be reckoned with ... having a formidable list of honorary patrons and Vice-Presidents".

The Institute stated its aims on the BBC in 1991:

"Western Goals works to establish networks and links with conservative groups dedicated to the preservation of the cultures and identities of western nations. We are conservatives who believe in traditional conservative values. A multi-cultural society does not work. We wish to protect the way of life we had before immigrants arrived. It was a mistake to permit these people to come here. Politicians must now accept this. Large numbers of immigrants reject European culture and wish to remain alien in religion and culture. We want European culture in European countries. We would seek to have treaties with countries to permit resettlement.".

Following the end of the Cold War, however, the group lost its original anti-Communist raison d’etre in Europe, at least, but continued to forge links with other ultra-conservative political parties such as the Front National of France. This association with Le Pen and his party resulted in many of the group’s former Conservative supporters distancing themselves from the organization.

Relationship with the Conservative Party

The WGI initially worked towards its goals within the British Conservative Party, in particular via the right-wing Conservative Monday Club with whom it shared some members.

In the late 1980s, WGI's predecessor, Western Goals UK, had established a parliamentary advisory committee of Conservative MPs which included Sir Patrick Wall, Nicholas Winterton, Neil Hamilton and Bill Walker, as well as Martin Smyth of the Ulster Unionist Party. In 1991, Western Goals was accused in a newspaper report of engineering a "take-over" of the Conservative Monday Club, and there were reports that some veteran members believed the Club had become "more extreme". Club Political Secretary Gregory Lauder-Frost rejected these claims in a right-of-reply letter published the following week.

Front National

Pierre Ceyrac, MEP., speaking to the Western Goals Institute, 12 October 1989.

On 12 October 1989, the Western Goals Institute hosted a controversial fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool, at which Pierre Ceyrac, a Front National Member of the European Parliament, was the Guest Speaker. In December 1991, after a visit by French right-wing leader Jean-Marie Le Pen at the request of the Institute, its Director Andrew Smith was quoted as saying:

"There is scope for a radical right alternative outside the Conservative Party. The Tories have betrayed their principles since Mrs Thatcher fell. With this contact with European leaders we are laying the foundations for a new party.".

The possibility of founding a new right-wing party, on the model of Le Pen's Front National, appears to have been abandoned by Smith after the Conservative Party's win in the 1992 General Election ensured that proportional representation stayed off the political agenda for the foreseeable future. However even at the time, the gradual defection of the parliamentary advisory committee and the decision of the leadership of the Monday Club and associated MPs to stay away from the Le Pen Dinner made the prospect unlikely.

Opposition grows

In September 1992, Sir Norman Fowler, in an attempt to distance the Conservative Party from the Institute, said that "No one in Western Goals is known by Central Office to belong to our party". This followed the Institute's invitation to Jean-Marie Le Pen, and 31 year-old Italian parliamentary deputy, Alessandra Mussolini, to address fringe meetings at the 1992 Conservative Party conference (although they both were unable to come to Britain and the meetings were subsequently cancelled). The invitation to Miss Mussolini were said to have "caused outrage", and led to calls for a ban on her entering the country. The Institute rejected Fowler's remark, saying that the majority of those associated with the institute held Conservative Party membership.

The Jewish Chronicle reported on 25 September 1992 that Marc Gordon, director of the libertarian International Freedom Foundation urged the Conservative Party to expel members of Western Goals, and in the same newspaper on 2 October, Julian Lewis (now a Member of Parliament, then deputy head of Conservative Central Office's Research Department), said he would strongly advise local associations that Western Goals was hostile to Conservative objectives. The Guardian subsequently accused the WGI of attempting "to infiltrate fascists into the Conservative Party", which the WGI disputed as "rubbish".

Notable activities

Gregory Lauder-Frost & Clive Derby-Lewis in Brussels as WGI delegates to the World Anti-Communist League Conference, 21 July 1990.

WGI supported the continuance of apartheid in South Africa, and hosted a visit to the UK, in June 1989, by the hierarchy of the Conservative Party of South Africa, which some years previously broke away from the National Party of South Africa after P.W. Botha instituted limited reforms. The delegation included the Conservative Party leader Andries Treurnicht. A press conference was held for the delegation in a committee room of the House of Lords on 5 June. Conservative Party of South Africa MP Clive Derby-Lewis, then one of sixty members of the integrated State President's Council, was made an honorary vice-president of the WGI. Derby-Lewis is currently serving a life sentence for conspiracy to murder Chris Hani, the leader of the South African Communist Party and leader of the ANC's terrorist arm, who was assassinated in 1993. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2 July 1993) lists the Western Goals Institute as an "impediment" to the elimination of racial discrimination in South Africa, saying of the Institute that it "claims to be devoted to protecting the Western way of life by offering self-defence training to white South Africans".

On 25 September 1989, Lord Sudeley chaired a Western Goals dinner at Simpson's-in-the-Strand for El Salvador's President, Alfredo Cristiani, and his inner cabinet. The guest list included figures such as Sir Alfred Sherman (policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher), Lord Nicholas Hervey, Antony Flew, Zigmunt Szkopiak, Denis Walker and Harvey Ward.

Torchlit small boat flotilla enters the lake at Moln, near Hamburg, as part of the anti-Communist demonstration on 12 August 1989, to which the WGI sent a delegation.

In Europe, Western Goals gave their open support to the French Front National, the populist right-wing political party led by Jean-Marie Le Pen. On 12 October 1989, WGI hosted a controversial fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool, addressed by Front National Member of the European Parliament, Pierre Ceyrac. Western Goals also examined the possibility of links with the right-wing German Republicans party, which in 1989 had six members in the European Parliament.

WGI delegation looks across no-mans land into East Germany (GDR) east of Moln where numerous refugees had been shot dead before reaching the west. 13 August 1989.

On 12 August 1989, a delegation from the Western Goals Institute attended an anti-communist demonstration at Moln, near Lübeck which over 20,000 people attended. The rally was organised by Die Deutschen Konservativen e. V., led by Joachim Siegerist, now a Latvian parliamentarian with whom the WGI had contacts.

The group hosted social events including an Annual Dinner at the Grosvenor Hotel at Victoria on 24 November 1989 when the guest of honour was Kenneth Griffith. On 20 November 1990, they hosted the General Franco Memorial Dinner, commemorating the anniversary of his death. This was also chaired by Baron Sudeley. A WGI notice in The Times stated that the late ruler of Spain was "remembered as a hero against communism".

Western Goals hosted a widely reported dinner for Jean-Marie Le Pen at the Charing Cross Hotel in the Strand, London in December 1991. There was a large demonstration against the dinner outside the hotel and some damage to property took place, notably the hotel's front doors and surroundings, which were smashed; an exclusive of the dinner appeared in The Mail on Sunday on 8 December. Western Goals director Andrew Smith speaking in April 1993 is quoted as saying that "on reflection the Le Pen visit was the zenith and also the beginning of the end" for him. However Private Eye cited him at the same time as saying that the Institute was "currently inactive, i.e: in a state of 'suspended animation', but we have other plans and projects under way.".

Last years

Negative publicity, the departure from the Directorate in late 1993 of A.V.R. Smith (replaced by Stuart Millson) and the end of the Soviet Union, meant that the group's activities diminished. In 1994/95 Lauder-Frost, writing as WGI Vice-President, called for the Union of Great Britain to be strengthened and rounded on John Major and Jeremy Hanley's comments about traditional Tories being "the enemies within" the Conservative Party. A successful Annual Dinner, chaired by Lauder-Frost, was held at the Grosvenor Hotel, Victoria, in March 1995, at which the guest-of-honour was the Democratic Unionist Party Member of Parliament, Peter Robinson, now First Minister of Northern Ireland.

Lack of adequate finance reduced any subsequent campaigning to their occasional policy papers, the glossy newsletter, press releases, and letters to editors. The organisation was wound up in 2001 following the death of its Patron, General Sir Walter Walker.