Conservative Democratic Alliance

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The Conservative Democratic Alliance (the "CDA") is a United Kingdom pressure group. The CDA refers to itself as the "authentic voice of conservatism"[1].

Contents

[edit] Foundation and organisation

The CDA was formed mostly by disaffected members of the Conservative Monday Club, another pressure group, who disagreed with the club's response to the Conservative Party's severing of links with the Club in 2001. The Daily Telegraph described the CDA as "a hardline offshoot of the Monday Club"[2]. The group has been described as "ultra-right" and "far-right" by opponents[3][4].

The group's Chairman is Mike Smith, who has been a member of the Conservative Monday Club since the early 1970s,[5] and served in its Executive Council throughout the second half of the 1980s until about 1992[citation needed].

Serving on the CDA's steering committee are Sam Swerling, a former Monday Club chairman (1980-1982), founder of the Monday Club's Philosophy Group, member of the Campaign for an Independent Britain, former Conservative Party Parliamentary Candidate and councillor on Westminster City Council, and Stuart Millson, a former editor of Kent Writers and founder of the short-lived Revolutionary Conservative Caucus in 1992, and Gregory Lauder-Frost. Millson and Lauder-Frost are both former members of the Conservative Party, the Monday Club and its Executive, as well as the Western Goals Institute, and both are now also members of the council of the Traditional Britain Group[6].

[edit] Politics

On 27 June 2002, The Daily Telegraph carried a letter from the CDA, signed by Mike Smith, attacking the Conservative Party and its Chairman Francis Maude for "the sleaze, double-dealing, arrogance, incompetence, Europhilia, indifference and drift with which the party is still associated. "Voters", he said, "deserve a real alternative to Blairism and his 'straight kinda guy' chicanery. Mr. Maude and his C-Changing Tories are incapable of providing it."

The CDA often criticises free-market economics and Americanisation in the United Kingdom, both of which it perceives to be after-effects of Thatcherism. This may be seen as distinguishing it from the modern Conservative Party leadership, which CDA members often criticise as neoconservative (Michael Gove is often singled out for criticism on this front)[citation needed]. The CDA is also fervently opposed to the European Union.

[edit] Activities

The CDA fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference in October 2002 was addressed by Roger Knapman, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party; Ashley Mote, prominent UKIP MEP and author of "Overcrowded Britain - Our Immigration Crisis Exposed" (2004); John Gouriet, a founder with Norris McWhirter of the Freedom Association alongside Derek Turner, editor of Right Now! magazine; and Adrian Davies, chairman of the fledgling Freedom Party and a barrister.

On 6 October 2004, the Conservative Democratic Alliance held a rally in tribute to Enoch Powell as a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference in Bournemouth, at which Ashley Mote, MEP, spoke[citation needed].

The CDA planned to field its own candidates against Conservative MPs with small majorities at the 2005 General Election[7], concentrating on Oliver Letwin, the then Shadow Treasury Spokesman, and MP for West Dorset, whom they describe as "simply not a Conservative at all". No candidates actually stood for the CDA at the 2005 General Election, and Letwin held his seat. However, CDA Chairman Michael Keith Smith stood as the United Kingdom Independence Party candidate for Portsmouth North. Both unsuccessful Tory candidate Penny Mordaunt and political commentator Richard North blamed Smith's intervention for the Tories' failure to win back the seat[citation needed].

The CDA's June 2005 Summer Dinner in Fleet Street, London, was addressed by the 'metric martyr', Neil Herron, who is leading the campaign against the adoption of the metric system in the UK. Ashley Mote again addressed the CDA as their guest-of-honour at their next Annual Dinner in London on 26 November 2005.

The CDA produce a regular bulletin, and have a website with discussion forums[8].

[edit] Controversies

An anti-Conservative Party advertisement for the CDA was published in Right Now!, containing the statement that the CDA was "horrified by Tory frontbench spokesmen advocating gay lifestyles and New Labour ideas". Andrew Hunter MP withdrew his patronage from the magazine due to the appearance of the advert, saying that he was 'appalled' by the "antics" of the CDA and that he no longer wanted to be associated with the magazine "in any way"[9][10].

In 2002, Iain Duncan Smith expelled CDA Chairman Michael Keith Smith from the Conservative Party[11] for threatening to stand candidates against Conservatives[12] (an action later reversed by court order),[13] and said that he had "plans to make the Conservative Democratic Alliance a proscribed organisation, which would ban party members from belonging to it"[14].

[edit] References

  1. ^ CDA homepage
  2. ^ The Daily Telegraph, 24 August 2004
  3. ^ The Guardian - Tory leader expels far right alliance chairman
  4. ^ The Commission for Racial Equality
  5. ^ IDS and Le Fascist, Sunday Mirror, 11 November 2001
  6. ^ Searchlight magazine, London, January 2006, p.23
  7. ^ The Independent - Tory expelled over rival election plan
  8. ^ Conservative Democratic Alliance
  9. ^ MP severs tie with far-right magazine, by Paul Waugh, The Independent, May 17, 2002
  10. ^ Gay Life Magazine article
  11. ^ Tory expelled over rival election plan, by Marie Woolf, The Independent, May 18, 2002
  12. ^ Tory leader expels far right alliance chairman by Nicholas Watt, The Guardian, Saturday May 18, 2002
  13. ^ Looking down on Armageddon, Searchlight Magazine
  14. ^ MP severs tie with far-right magazine, by Paul Waugh, The Independent, May 17, 2002
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