55 Tufton Street

55 Tufton Street
General information
Address	55 Tufton Street, Westminster, London SW1P 3QL
Town or city	London
Country	United Kingdom
Coordinates	51°29′47″N 0°07′42″W / 51.4963°N 0.1284°W / 51.4963; -0.1284Coordinates: 51°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 Tufton Street, in Westminster, London, owned by businessman Richard Smith.^[1] Since the 2010s the building has hosted lobby groups and think tanks related to Brexit and climate change.^[2] A group of these think tanks, dubbed "The Nine Entities", use the building for biweekly meetings to coordinate policy and public messages.^[3][1]

The nine lobby groups—the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the office of Peter Whittle (the former deputy leader of UKIP), Civitas, the Adam Smith Institute, Leave Means Leave, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Brexit Central, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Institute for 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".^[4]

The organisations it houses have close connections with those at nextdoor 57 Tufton Street, including the Centre for Policy Studies and CapX.^[5]

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 founded by Matthew Eliott and a donor to 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.^[5][1]

Lobbying organisations[]

The Observer describe 55 Tufton Street is the focus of "a network of opaquely funded organisations that centre around Matthew Eliott", and cite former 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.^[6] The Independent describes it as "the centre of a network of scepticism towards Europe and climate change, in which the same names and keep cropping up"a and names Conservative Party politician Nigel Lawson as a key figure.^[1]

Brexit Central[]

BrexitCentral was a pro-Brexit news website founded by Matthew Eliott, who was also its editor-in-chief.^[6] It was active from 2016 to 2020. It employed Darren Grimes, who previously worked at Vote Leave and subsequently at the Institute for Economic Affairs.^[6]

Business for Britain[]

Business for Britain was a eurosceptic campaign group which seeks 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.^[7] 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.^[8] In October 2015, the Business for Britain Board unanimously decided to support the Vote Leave Campaign^[9][10] (until 7 October 2015).^[11] It closed in September 2016.^[5]

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".^[12][13] 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.^[14] The Times has described Civitas as an ally of former Education Secretary Michael Gove.^[12] It is opposed to green regulations, to legislation designed to reduce climate change, and to greater reliance on renewable energy.^[15][16] It has been criticised by Transparify for its “opaque” operations.^[5]

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.^[5] One of its director 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]

Global Vision[]

Global Vision is a British eurosceptic campaign group.^[17] It is an independent, not-for-profit group, with no explicit links with any political party.^[18] 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.^[19] Its co-founder and director is Ruth Lea.^[5]

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.^[20] Its founder is Nigel Lawson and its chair is Alan Rudge.^[5] The GWPF as well as some of its prominent members have been characterized as promoting climate change denial.^[21][22] 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.

Leave Means Leave[]

Leave Means Leave was a pro-Brexit,^[23] Eurosceptic political pressure group organisation that campaigned and lobbied^[24] 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, with its website stating that it had “achieved its aims.”^[5]

Migration Watch UK[]

Migration Watch UK is a British think-tank^{[25][26][27][28]} and campaign group^{[29][30][31][32][33]} which argues for lower immigration into the United Kingdom.^[34][35][36] 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.^[37][38]

New Culture Forum[]

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New Culture Forum (NCF) is a right wing think tank, founded and directed by Peter Whittle and advised by Matthew Elliott,^[5] 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, Jeremy Hunt MP, Michael Gove MP, Nigel Farage MEP, Justin Webb, Sir Anthony Seldon, Petroc Trelawny, Ed Vaizey MP, Melanie Phillips, Brendan O'Neil and Owen Jones. Writers for the New Culture Forum have included Douglas Murray, Julie Bindel, Ed West, and .

Taxpayers' Alliance[]

The TaxPayers' Alliance is a right-wing pressure group in the United Kingdom founded by Matthew Elliott^[6] 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 although it has been suggested^{[by whom?]} that a vast majority of these supporters who do not contribute financially or engage in campaigning were simply signed up to a mailing list.^{[citation needed]}

There has been speculation regarding the funding of the organisation and whether significant contributions have been received from overseas.^{[citation needed]} Along with Civitas, the TaxPayers' Alliance was 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.^[40] The TaxPayers' Alliance has close links and overlap of personnel with other Eurosceptic think tanks based at 55 Tufton Street.^[3][6]

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 was “a robust, common sense energy policy that would encourage the market to choose affordable technologies to reduce emissions”, such as shale gas and small . 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.^[5]

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][5]

Influence on government policy[]

Bob Ward, policy director at the London School of Economics’ Grantham Institute, told The Independent that “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]

September 2020 the Extinction Rebellion group Writers Rebel demonstrated outside of the building to protest the influence that the lobby groups and think tanks have on government policy.^[41][42][43]

“It’s sickening how much money is being spent on thinktanks and professional lobbyists to spread confusion, lies and doubt on the subject of man-made climate change and its horribly real threat,”

— Stephen Fry

References[]