55 Tufton Street
General information
Address55 Tufton Street, Westminster, London SW1P 3QL
Town or cityLondon
CountryUnited Kingdom
Coordinates51°29′47″N 0°07′42″W / 51.4963°N 0.1284°W / 51.4963; -0.1284

55 Tufton Street is a four-storey Georgian-era townhouse on historic Tufton Street, in Westminster, London, owned by businessman Richard Smith.[1] Since the 2010s the building has hosted a network of libertarian lobby groups and think tanks related to pro-Brexit, climate science denial and other fossil-fuel lobby groups.[2] Some of the organisations it houses have close connections with those at 57 Tufton Street next door, including the Centre for Policy Studies and CapX.[2]

A group of these lobbying organisations, dubbed "The Nine Entities",[3] used the building for biweekly meetings to coordinate policy and public messages.[1][4] The nine lobby groups—the TaxPayers' Alliance, the office of Peter Whittle (a former deputy leader of UKIP), Civitas, the Adam Smith Institute, Leave Means Leave, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (the UK's principal climate change denial group), BrexitCentral, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Institute of Economic Affairs—were accused by former Vote Leave employee Shahmir Sanni of using the meetings to "agree on a single set of right-wing talking points" and "securing more exposure to the public".[5]

This network has been linked to major US funders of climate change denial and right-wing political causes including the Koch brothers and Robert Mercer, and to populist far-right parties in Europe, such as the Sweden Democrats and the Brothers of Italy.[6][7]

Ownership

The building is owned by Richard Smith, a businessman who runs an aerospace company, the HR Smith Group, and who is a trustee of the Politics and Economics Research Trust founded by Matthew Eliott.

He is a major donor to the Conservative Party and pro-Brexit causes. The building was purchased for £4.25 million in 2009 by Specmat, a technology manufacturing company owned by Smith.[2][1]

Residents

Civitas

Civitas is a think tank that describes itself as "classical liberal" and "non-partisan". The Times and The Daily Telegraph have described it as a "right-of-centre think-tank".[8][9] Its chair is Alan Rudge. Its director, David G. Green, writes occasionally in The Daily Telegraph and its deputy director, Anastasia de Waal, frequently contributes to The Guardian's "Comment is free" section.[10] The Times has described Civitas as an ally of former Education Secretary Michael Gove.[8] It is opposed to green regulations, to legislation designed to reduce climate change, and to greater reliance on renewable energy.[11][12] It has been criticised by Transparify for its "opaque" operations.[2]

European Foundation

The European Foundation is a Eurosceptic think tank based in the United Kingdom. It is chaired by Bill Cash, a Conservative MP. The organisation produces the European Journal. It has been advised by Matthew Elliott.[2] One of its directors is 55 Tufton Street owner Richard Smith. During the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, it published an influential paper promoting skepticism about anthropogenic climate change.[1]

Feeding Britain

Feeding Britain is a charity set up in October 2015 to implement the recommendations made by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Hunger and Food Poverty.[13]

Global Vision

Global Vision is a British eurosceptic campaign group.[14] It is an independent, not-for-profit group, with no explicit links with any political party.[15] The "Parliamentary Friends of Global Vision" cross-party group has 24 Members of Parliament, all of whom are Conservatives, two Members of the European Parliament, both of whom are Conservatives, and 17 representative peers, of whom ten are Conservative, six are cross-benchers, and one is independent Labour.[16] Its co-founder and director is Ruth Lea.[2]

Global Warming Policy Foundation

The Global Warming Policy Foundation is a lobby group in the United Kingdom whose stated aims are to challenge "extremely damaging and harmful policies" envisaged by governments to mitigate anthropogenic global warming.[17] Its founder is Nigel Lawson and its chair is Alan Rudge.[2] The GWPF as well as some of its prominent members have been characterized as promoting climate change denial.[18][19] In 2014, when the Charity Commission ruled that the GWPF had breached rules on impartiality, a non-charitable organisation called the "Global Warming Policy Forum" was created as a wholly owned subsidiary, to do lobbying that a charity could not. The GWPF website carries an array of articles "sceptical" of scientific findings of anthropogenic global warming and its impacts.

LGB Alliance

The LGB Alliance is a British advocacy group founded in 2019, in opposition to the policies of LGBT rights charity Stonewall on transgender issues.[20] It has an office in London at 55 Tufton Street.[21][22]

Migration Watch UK

Migration Watch UK is a British think-tank[23][24][25][26] and campaign group[27][28][29][30][31] which argues for lower immigration into the United Kingdom.[32][33][34] Founded in 2001, the group believes that international migration places undue demand on limited resources and that the current level of immigration is not sustainable.[35][36]

New Culture Forum

New Culture Forum (NCF) is a right-wing think tank, founded and directed by former UKIP Assembly Member Peter Whittle, advised by Matthew Elliott,[2] whose mission is described as "challenging the cultural orthodoxies dominant in the media, academia, education, and British culture in its widest sense." Speakers at NCF events, including for its annual keynote Smith Lecture, have included Martin Amis, Dame Vivien Westwood, MPs Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove and Ed Vaizey, Nigel Farage, Justin Webb, Sir Anthony Seldon, Petroc Trelawny, Melanie Phillips, and Brendan O'Neill. Writers for the New Culture Forum have included Douglas Murray, Julie Bindel and Ed West.[37]

TaxPayers' Alliance

The TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) is a right-wing pressure group in the United Kingdom founded by Matthew Elliott[38] in 2004 to campaign for a low tax society. The group had about 18,000 registered supporters as of 2008;[39] it reported 55,000 supporters by September 2010.[40]

In 2017 and 2022, both the TPA and Civitas were given the lowest possible grade for financial transparency by Who Funds You?, a British project that rates and promotes transparency of funding sources of think tanks.[41][42][43] The TPA has close links and overlap of personnel with other Eurosceptic think tanks based at 55 Tufton Street.[4][38]

Former residents

Big Brother Watch

Big Brother Watch is a civil liberties and privacy campaigning organisation, founded by Matthew Elliot in 2009. Its registered company address was at 55 Tufton Street until May 2019.[44][45]

Business for Britain

Business for Britain was a eurosceptic campaign group which sought renegotiation of the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. The campaign was founded in April 2013 by five hundred business leaders, including Matthew Elliott, Phones 4u co founder John Caudwell and former Marks & Spencer chairman Stuart Rose.[46] The group published non-peer-reviewed and misleading research on the voting record of the United Kingdom in the European Parliament in 2014, called Measuring Britain's influence in the Council of Ministers.[47] In October 2015, the Business for Britain Board unanimously decided to support the Vote Leave Campaign[48][49] (until 7 October 2015).[50] It closed in September 2016.[2]

Leave Means Leave

Leave Means Leave was a pro-Brexit,[51] Eurosceptic political pressure group organisation that campaigned and lobbied[52] for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union following the 'Leave' result of the EU referendum on 23 June 2016. The campaign was co-chaired by British property entrepreneur Richard Tice and business consultant John Longworth. The vice-chairman was Leader of the Brexit Party, Nigel Farage. It ceased to operate on 31 January 2020, when the UK left the EU; its website stated that it had "achieved its aims".[2]

UK2020

UK2020 is a former resident of the building, a right-wing thinktank founded by Owen Paterson in 2014 and compared with the US Tea Party movement. It called for "a robust, common sense energy policy that would encourage the market to choose affordable technologies to reduce emissions", such as shale gas and small modular nuclear reactors. It also campaigned against climate change–related regulations and subsidies in the energy sector. Matt Ridley of the GWPF was a policy advisor and Tim Montgomerie was a political adviser.[2]

Vote Leave

Vote Leave was the official pro-Brexit pressure group during the 2016 Referendum, originally based at 55 Tufton Street before moving to larger premises. Members included its chair Nigel Lawson, its chief executive Matthew Elliott, Graham Stringer, Andrea Leadsom, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.[1][2]

Influence on UK government policy

Bob Ward, policy director at the London School of Economics' Grantham Institute, told The Independent:

This zealous ideological clique are trying to imprint their extreme agenda on government policy. It's clear they enjoy preferential access to some parts of government and, considering their small size, they are having a disproportionate impact ... [which] is undermining the democratic process.[1]

The Observer describes 55 Tufton Street as the focus of "a network of opaquely funded organisations that centre around Matthew Eliott", and cites a former employee at these organisations who describes them as pursuing "different strands of the same political goals. One of these is the exit of the UK from the EU." They also talk about a "revolving door" between the organisations in terms of staff who move between them.[38] The Independent describes it as "the centre of a network of scepticism towards Europe and climate change, in which the same names keep cropping up", and names Conservative Party politician Nigel Lawson as a key figure.[1]

Protests

In September 2020, the Extinction Rebellion group Writers Rebel demonstrated outside the building to protest against the influence that the lobby groups and think tanks have on government policy. Environmental campaigner veteran George Monbiot called out the Tufton think tanks for their tactics of denial and confusion over the climate science standing in front of the 55 Tufton Street – their 'heart of darkness'.[53][54][55]

After the downturn in the financial markets following the announced economic plans by Prime Minister Liz Truss in September 2022, the political campaign group Led By Donkeys placed an oversized blue plaque at 55 Tufton Street, reading "The UK economy was crashed here". In their video they argued that the thinktanks located here were behind the failed policies.[56]

In October 2022, Just Stop Oil supporters sprayed paint on the front of the building in protest at the actions of climate change denial group Global Warming Policy Foundation and other fossil-fuel lobby groups based in the building.[57]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Bawden, Tom (10 February 2016). "The address where Eurosceptics and climate change sceptics rub shoulders". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 11 February 2016. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Mandel, Kyla (21 July 2021). "55 Tufton Street". DeSmog. Retrieved 25 November 2021.
  3. ↑ "Brexit Scam: We Need to Talk About Tufton Street". Brexitshambles. 4 September 2018.
  4. 1 2 Ramsay, Adam; Geoghegan, Peter (31 July 2018). "Revealed: how the UK's powerful right-wing think tanks and Conservative MPs work together". openDemocracy. Retrieved 7 October 2018.
  5. ↑ Farand, Chloe (23 June 2018). "Mapped: Whistleblower Accuses Nine Organisations of Colluding over Hard Brexit". DeSmog UK. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  6. ↑ Ahmed, Nafeez (20 June 2019). "How US climate deniers are working with far-right racists to hijack Brexit for Big Oil". Le Monde diplomatique. Paris.
  7. ↑ Hope, Mat; Farand, Chloe (7 June 2019). "DeSmog's Pro-Brexit Climate Science Denier Map — A User's Guide". DeSmog. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  8. 1 2 "Gove allies say 'Sixties-mired' Ofsted should be scrapped". The Times. London. 24 January 2014. Retrieved 13 April 2014.
  9. ↑ Johnston, Philip (7 April 2014). "A close encounter with the property boom". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 13 April 2014.
  10. ↑ "Anastasia de Waal". The Guardian.
  11. ↑ Mandel, Kyla (1 May 2017). "Brexit Climate Deniers Launch Coordinated Attack Against Green Regulations Ahead of Election". DeSmog UK. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
  12. ↑ "Jeremy Nicholson". DeSmog UK. 26 July 2019. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
  13. ↑ "Feeding Britain: About Us". Feeding Britain. 3 March 2022. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  14. ↑ "Global Vision home page". Retrieved 26 July 2007.
  15. ↑ ""Who we are" page on the Global Vision website". Archived from the original on 22 July 2007. Retrieved 26 July 2007.
  16. ↑ ""Parliamentary Friends" page on the Global Vision website". Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 26 July 2007.
  17. ↑ "Ed Miliband clashes with Lord Lawson on global warming". BBC News. news.bbc.co.uk. 6 December 2009. Retrieved 22 December 2009.
  18. ↑ Johnston, Ian (11 May 2014). "Nigel Lawson's climate-change denial charity 'intimidated' environmental expert". The Independent. Archived from the original on 11 May 2014.
  19. ↑ Wherry, Frederick F.; Schor, Juliet B. (2015). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Economics and Society. Sage Publications. p. 1020. ISBN 978-1-5063-4617-5.
  20. ↑ Hurst, Greg (24 October 2019). "Transgender dispute splits Stonewall". The Times. London. Retrieved 13 February 2021.
  21. ↑ Stone, Gemma; Hurley, Lee (19 December 2022). "Revealed: LGB Alliance has secret office at UK's libertarian think tank hub". openDemocracy.
  22. ↑ Chuddy, Emily (19 December 2022). "LGB Alliance's London address leaked as 55 Tufton Street, home of notorious right-wing groups". PinkNews.
  23. ↑ Reland, Joël (16 August 2019). "How many refugees does the UK take in?". Full Fact. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  24. ↑ "Reality Check: Could 250,000 refugees come to the UK from 2020?". BBC News. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  25. ↑ Malnick, Edward (11 March 2018). "Migrants claim £4bn a year in benefits, new report claims". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  26. ↑ Wintour, Patrick; Mason, Rowena. "David Cameron 'Ukip desperation' over MigrationWatch UK founder's peerage". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  27. ↑ Swinford, Steven (22 January 2020). "Boris Johnson lifts £30k wage barrier on immigrants". The Times. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  28. ↑ Hymas, Charles (28 January 2020). "Ousted adviser dismissed Australian points-based immigration as 'soundbite'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  29. ↑ "News Daily: Student visa rules change and Labour on Brexit". BBC News. 11 September 2019. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  30. ↑ Worrall, Patrick (27 May 2016). "FactCheck: everything you need to know about EU immigration". Channel 4 News. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  31. ↑ Smith, Hayden (13 February 2019). "Migration into UK could rise after Brexit - new report". independent.ie.
  32. ↑ Milliken, David (24 May 2019). "UK immigration falls to five-year low as influx of EU workers slows" – via uk.reuters.com.
  33. ↑ Ford, Richard (28 January 2020). "Johnson's points-based immigration pledge dismissed as 'soundbite'". The Times. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  34. ↑ "Immigration to Britain hits five-year low ahead of Brexit". Al Jazeera. 22 August 2019. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  35. ↑ Ford, Richard (23 August 2018). "Migration linked to 82% of growth in the population". The Times. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  36. ↑ "Migrant salary threshold fall 'would boost public sector'". BBC News. 28 January 2020. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  37. ↑ "New Culture Forum". Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  38. 1 2 3 Cadwalladr, Carole (21 July 2018). "Shahmir Sanni: 'Nobody was called to account. But I lost almost everything'". The Observer. London. Retrieved 25 November 2021.
  39. ↑ Wheeler, Brian (3 March 2008). "The campaign group: Taxpayers' Alliance". BBC Online. Retrieved 10 May 2010.
  40. ↑ Booth, Robert (9 September 2010). "A very British Tea Party: US anti-tax activists advise UK counterparts". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 August 2022.
  41. ↑ Moshinsky, Ben (4 July 2017). "RANKED: The UK's think tanks, from most to least transparent". Business Insider.
  42. ↑ Mureithi, Anita (17 November 2022). "Revealed: UK's most secretive think tanks bank £14.3m in mystery cash". openDemocracy. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  43. ↑ "Who Funds You?". openDemocracy. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  44. ↑ Cunliffe, Rachel (19 April 2021). "Big Brother Watch's Silkie Carlo: "The rule of law has broken down"". New Statesman. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
  45. ↑ "BIG BROTHER WATCH LIMITED". find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
  46. ↑ Ben Marlow (8 November 2014). "Business leaders demand cross-party pledge on EU vote". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  47. ↑ O'Leary, Joseph (22 June 2016). "How often does the EU overrule British ministers?". fullfact.org. Retrieved 25 June 2016.
  48. ↑ "Business for Britain's Support For Vote Leave". Business for Britain. Retrieved 21 December 2015.
  49. ↑ "Business For Britain - Political Party in Westminster SW1P 3QL - 192.com". www.192.com. Retrieved 7 October 2018.
  50. ↑ "BUSINESS FOR BRITAIN LIMITED – Filing history (free information from Companies House)". beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  51. ↑ Smith, Adam (26 November 2017). "Iain Duncan Smith backs report calling for 'drastic reduction' in immigration". Metro.
  52. ↑ "Ireland seeks momentum on border ahead of key Brexit meeting". Associated Press. 3 December 2017. Archived from the original on 15 December 2017. Retrieved 14 December 2017.
  53. ↑ Murray, Jessica (2 September 2020). "Literary figures join Extinction Rebellion campaign against thinktanks". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  54. ↑ Monbiot, George (1 September 2020). "No 10 and the secretly funded lobby groups intent on undermining democracy". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  55. ↑ Extinction Rebellion UK (5 September 2020). George Monbiot | 55 Tufton Street | Writers Rebel – via YouTube.
  56. ↑ Sommerlad, Joe (18 October 2022). "What is 55 Tufton Street? The house that 'crashed' the UK economy". The Independent. London. Retrieved 18 October 2022.
  57. ↑ Cockburn, Harry (25 October 2022). "Just Stop Oil protesters throw paint over influential fossil fuel lobbying HQ". The Independent. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
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