The Development of the Monday Club And Its Contribution To The Conservative Party And The Modern British Right, 1961 to 1990. Lisa Mason BA(Hons) A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2004 This work or any part thereof has not previously been presented in any form to the University or to any other body whether for the purposes of assessment, publication or for any other purpose (unless previously indicated). Save for any express acknowledgements, references and/or bibliographies cited in the work, I confirm that the intellectual content of the work is the result of my own efforts and of no other person. The right of Lisa Mason to be identified as author of this work is asserted in accordance with ss.77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. At this date copyright is owned by the author. S ignature . Date.......!i‘..77...10. Abstract The thesis is concerned with the organisational and ideological development of the Monday Club and its contribution to the Conservative Governments, the Conservative Party and the modern British Right, from the Club's inception in 1961 to the fall of Margaret Thatcher in 1990. The significance of this investigation lies in the fact that whilst the Monday Club is much referred to, with the exception of one article, it has not been seriously studied. Yet, it has been regarded as one of the most well known groups within the Conservative Party and it was important enough for a number of Conservative MPs, including members of the Cabinet, to have become members. The Monday Club is most frequently associated with controversial views on decolonisation and immigration, and these are explored in some detail. However, it adopted a comprehensive policy framework which the thesis addresses by looking at a range of policy areas. The thesis shows that the Club activity was intended to influence the Conservative Party and the British Right. However, while it has been claimed that the Club has influenced the Conservative Party or Conservative Government policy, the thesis argues that where Conservative policy has accorded with that of the Club, this was crucially where it shared ground with other groups on the New Right. The study has also considered the novelty of the Club's conservatism. It espoused a particular kind of conservatism, which is best classified as radical right, a development 11 that left it outside the main forces driving Conservatism and Britain to the right in the closing decades of the twentieth century. The thesis has particularly drawn on Monday Club publications, a number of interviews and access to a hitherto unused archive, the Sir Patrick Wall collection of papers, held at Hull University. 111 The Development of the Monday Club and its Contribution to the Conservative Party and the Modern British Right, 1961 to 1990. Contents Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction 1 - 8 Chapter 1. The Monday Club and Conservatism 9 - 25 Chapter 2. Organisational Development 26 - 86 Chapter 3. Africa — loss of Empire 87 - 124 Chapter 4. Race and Immigration 125 - 161 Chapter 5. Economic Policy 162 - 198 Chapter 6. Northern Ireland 199 - 230 Chapter 7. Europe 231 - 259 Chapter 8. Conclusion 260 - 287 Bibliography 288 - 303 iv Acknowledgements I would like to express my thanks to a number of people who have helped me in my research. I am indebted firstly to my director of studies, Martin Durham who has read and commented on my work throughout the period of research and has provided material and encouragement, and to my second supervisor, Professor Andrew Gamble, who has assisted in commenting on my work and making suggestions for changes; I am grateful to both for imparting their knowledge and their experience. I would also like to express my thanks to Patrick Seyd who was willing to talk to me about his article on the Monday Club, for his suggestions as to the direction of the study and for providing me with Club material not previously accessed. I attempted to get interviews from a number of past and present members of the Monday Club and I am very grateful to those who were willing to be interviewed. Therefore, I would like to express my appreciation to Andrew Hunter MP, Gerald Howarth MP, and Graham Webster-Gardiner, who gave me their time and were extremely helpful in imparting their knowledge on the Club and the benefit of their experience within the Club. I am also grateful to The Bodleian Library Oxford who gave me access to the Conservative Party Archives, to Hull University who permitted access to the Sir Patrick Wall collection and to Warwick University who hold a collection of Monday Club V material. I would like to thank them not only for granting me access but also for the help I received during the visits I made there. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my husband and my family, as without their continual support and encouragement I would not have completed this thesis. vi List of Abbreviations AIA Anglo-Irish Agreement ANC African National Congress BNP British National Party CAF Central African Federation CCO Conservative Central Office CPC Conservative Political Centre CPS Centre for Policy Studies CRC Community Relations Commission CRD Conservative Research Department CRE Commission for Racial Equality CRM Civil Rights Movement DEA Department of Economic Affairs DUP Democratic Unionist Party ECSC European Coal and Steel Community EDC European Defence Community EMS European Monetary System FCS Federation of Conservative Students HINC Halt Immigration Now Campaign IEA Institute of Economic Affairs MTFS Medium Term Financial Strategy NCRCP National Campaign for the Restoration of Capital Punishment NICRA Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association vii PEST Pressure for Economic and Social Toryism RUC Royal Ulster Constabulary SDLP Social Democratic and Labour Party UDA Ulster Defence Association UPNI Unionist Party of Northern Ireland UUP Ulster Unionist Party UUUC United Ulster Unionist Council UWC Ulster Workers' Council VUP Vanguard Unionist Party WGUK Western Goals UK WISE Welsh Irish Scottish English viii Introduction The aim of this study is to examine the organisational and ideological development of the Monday Club and its contribution to the Conservative Governments, the Conservative Party and the modern British Right, from the Club's inception in 1961 to the fall of Margaret Thatcher in 1990. The significance of this investigation lies in the fact that whilst the Monday Club has received much media attention over the years, how important it has been in Conservative politics remains to be established. The Monday Club is frequently ignored or only referred to in passing in scholarly studies of the Conservative Party and the modern British Right and those accounts that do discuss it tend to concentrate on its policy regarding race and immigration, and fail to explore the development of the organisation and its policy or evaluate its contribution to modern British Conservatism. The originality of this study is to offer a detailed analysis of the Monday Club, appraising its influence, if any on the Conservative Party and the modern British Right. The Monday Club is worthy of study as it is "The best known of Conservative unofficial groups". Furthermore, the fact that a number of MPs joined the Club, some of whom were ministers and members of the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinets, would suggest that it should be seen to be important. It was active nationally and it was particularly active at 1. Neill Nugent and Roger King (eds.), The British Right, Conservatives and Right Wing Politics in Britain, Farnborough: Saxon House, 1977, p.43. 1 Conservative Party Conferences. After its formative years it intended to develop a framework that would challenge the Conservative Party leadership's adhesion to post war consensus politics. 2 Even if it failed to achieve this aim, this does not detract from the fact that it is worthy of study. As Roger Eatwell has argued with reference to the British National Party (BNP), the BNP failed to influence or make an impact on British politics, but nonetheless, it remains important to examine reasons why it failed in order to put the British experience in context in a broader study of extremism.3 In evaluating earlier work on the Club, the central contribution has been an article published in 1972 by Patrick Seyd. His article is the only commentary on the Club that raises key issues other than race and immigration, as he examines the Club's early organisational and ideological development. The purpose of Seyd's article is to investigate how the Monday Club fulfils the role of a faction within the Conservative Party. Seyd argues that the Monday Club is worthy of study because it breaks with the ideas of intra-party debate, that is to say, it is "a party within the party". 4 Despite Seyd's 2. Andrew Gamble, The Conservative Nation, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974, pp.106-108. 3. Roger Eatwell, "The extreme right and British exceptionalism: the primacy of politics" in Paul Hainsworth (ed.), The Politics of the Extreme Right from the Margins to the Mainstream, London: Continuum Imprint, 2000, pp. 172-192. 4. Patrick Seyd, "Factionalism within the Conservative Party: The Monday Club", Government and Opposition, Vol. 7, No.4, 1972, p.467. 2 valuable article, a comprehensive study on the Monday Club is now needed to extend his findings beyond the 1970s, particularly as the Club experienced in-fighting which was to result in its reputation being tarnished in the period after the article. Furthermore, Seyd's article, while showing the distinctiveness of the Club in terms of its factionalism, does not highlight enough its novelty in that it espoused a particular strand of conservatism which combined a right wing approach on race and immigration, empire and anti- communism, with neo-liberalism on economics.