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Conservative Democratic Alliance |
The Conservative Democratic Alliance (CDA) is a United Kingdom pressure group. The CDA refers to itself as the "authentic voice of conservatism".1
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The CDA was formed mostly by disaffected members of the Conservative Monday Club, another right-wing 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 was described as "ultra-right" by opponents.34
The group's Chairman is Mike Smith, who has been a member of the Conservative Monday Club since the early 1970s,5 and served on its Executive Council, 1986 - 1993.
Original members of the CDA's steering committee included
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.10
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." (NB "C-Change" was a now-defunct Tory modernising pressure group headed by Maude.)
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 IDS Conservative Party leadership, which CDA members often criticised as neoconservative. The CDA is also fervently opposed to the European Union and to close links with George Bush and his Neoconservatives.
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, a barrister, and prominent critic of the British National Partycitation needed .
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.
The CDA planned to field its own candidates against Conservative MPs with small majorities at the 2005 General Election11, 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.1213
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.
The CDA produce a regular bulletin, and have a website with discussion forums14.
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"1516.
Michael Keith Smith has recently described the advertisement, penned by former CDA supporter Peter Gibbs,citation needed as "regrettably homophobic". Smith has branded the incident "an untoward event" and promised that CDA will take a more "forward-looking and inclusive role in future."citation needed
In 2002, Iain Duncan Smith expelled CDA Chairman Michael Keith Smith from the Conservative Party17 for threatening to stand candidates against Conservatives18.
Smith issued a writ claiming Breach of Natural Justice and the party was obliged to re-admit him to membership. 19
Soon afterwards Smith resigned from the Conservative Party, and stood as a parliamentary candidate for the United Kingdom Independence Party in Portsmouth North where the Labour victory was claimed by the Conservative candidate to be a result of the UKIP candidacy20, a claim also made by Richard North of the Bruges Group.21. According to the CDA's Forum Mike Smith has now rejoined the Conservative Party."After wide-ranging initial doubts, Mike Smith has now enthusiastically accepted David Cameron’s reform agenda and returned to the Conservative Party from UKIP."
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