Robin Birley (businessman)

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Robin Birley (1957 -) is an English socialite, politician and businessman. He is the son of Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart and nightclub owner Mark Birley. He has one brother (deceased), Rupert, and a sister, India Jane Birley. He is the half-brother of Jemima, Zac and Ben Goldsmith.

[edit] Career

Birley has long been a figure in United Kingdom business, public relations and politics. He was until 2004 the chairman of the Democracy Movement [1], a crossparty pressure group once financed by Paul Sykes that succeeded the efforts of the now defunct Referendum Party. The Democracy Movement actively campaigns against a European Union constitution and a single European currency. [2]

A staunchly conservative euro-sceptic, Birley stood as a candidate for the Referendum Party, founded by his step-father Sir James Goldsmith with the aim of creating a referendum on UK membership in the European Union.

Birley has a far-reaching hand in right wing politics, both locally and internationally. In 1998 Birley began his work with Chilean Supporters Abroad. During a break in the trial of Chile's former president Augusto Pinochet, Birley welcomed him to England and helped finance a sumptuous residence for him as well as a pro-Pinochet pamphlet. Birley stated:" It's also an abuse of hospitality to ambush an old man when he has come to this country year after year. He has done an immense amount for Chile. No one is supporting him and I have sympathy for the underdog."[3]

In the early 1990s Birley was president of the Mozambique Institute, which supported Renamo, a conservative political party sponsored by the white minority government in Rhodesia and later the by the apartheid regime in South Africa. Birley once told George Monbiot, that he believed he "had not just a right but a duty to give help to Renamo, the South African-backed force which terrorised the people of Mozambique."[4]

In 2005 Birley financed David Davis' bid to become the leader of the United Kingdom's Conservative Party. Birley described Davis as "the most conservative of the candidates."[5] Though the post went Davis' competitor, David Cameron, Birley's younger brother Zac Goldsmith was given a high profile role as the party leader's advisor on environmental issues.

When his father became wheelchair bound, Birley and his sister took over the operation of his nighclub empire[6]. Birley is best known for revamping Annabel's, the legendary London hotspot founded by his father and named for his mother.

However in late 2006, Birley was dismissed by his father and his sister on the grounds of alleged misconduct for having engaged a private investigator to do a background check on the father of his 45 year old sister India Jane's love child, her 26 year old Alexander Technique teacher, without her knowledge or permission. Birley paid £200 000 for what turned out to be false information [7].

Since his dismissal, Birley has concentrated on his company Envirotrade which sells carbon credits. Carbon credits allow companies which produce less than the maximum allowable pollution to transfer (for a fee) their unused carbon allowances to other businesses, allowing those businesses to correspondingly exceed their maximum pollution quotas.[8]. Envirotrade also finances projects in Bhutan and Mozambique.

[edit] Private life

Birley grew up in London with his siblings, Rupert and India Jane. He was educated at Eton. His parents were divorced after his mother had two children Jemima and Zac with his father's friend Sir James Goldsmith. His mother eventually married Goldsmith and continued their polyamorous relationship. They had another son, Benjamin.[9]

During his adolescence, Birley was mauled by a tiger at Howletts Zoo, the private zoo of family friend John Aspinall. The bones on one side of his face were crushed. He has endured years of cosmetic surgery but the accident left him severely disfigured.[10]

In 1986 his brother Rupert drowned in mysterious circumstances whilst working in Togo, West Africa.^[1]

Birley has a daughter, Maud, with his former girlfriend Annette 'Annabel' Sidoroinicz. He married Lucy Helmore, the ex-wife of Bryan Ferry, in October 2006.[11]