Springbok Club

The Springbok Club is a UK-based far-right association of expatriate Southern Africans and others who have an interest in the African continent. Although primarily a social organisation, it does have a political dimension which it describes as "neo-Imperialist", in as much as it advocates a return to what it calls "civilised rule" in South Africa, Zimbabwe and elsewhere in the Third World. The Springbok Club also operates under the name of the Empire Loyalist Club, and has close links to the London Swinton circle and New Britain. It claims to support "a revived forward-looking British Empire and Commonwealth" as well as the re-establishment of other European overseas empires, as an alternative to the European Union, which it considers to be inward-looking.
The organisation was founded in London in 1996 as a merger between the White Rhino Club and the Rhodesian Forum. The name was chosen because the Springbok was formerly the symbol of Southern African sporting teams when players could be chosen from throughout South Africa, Rhodesia and South West Africa. It does not, however, have any direct connection to any South African sporting teams of today.
The Club supports continuing British Sovereignty over its existing overseas territories such as Gibraltar, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands the Falkland Islands etc., and stronger ties between the UK and Commonwealth countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Malta. A regular guest speaker at joint functions staged by the Springbok Club and the London Swinton Circle is Philip Benwell MBE, chairman of the Australian Monarchist League.
The Club holds special events each year when it celebrates Empire Day, Trafalgar Day, Rhodesian UDI Day and the Day of the Vow. The club's main centre is in London, but is developing a branch structure in other parts of the UK and throughout the world. The Club's current organiser is Alan Harvey, who has been editor of the magazine South African Patriot (now S.A. Patriot-in-Exile) since 1981, and was a former activist in the National Front.
The Club has links to the British Conservative Party through the allegedly less extreme Swinton circle. Many members of the Springbok Club hold joint membership of the Swinton Circle and joint meetings are held regularly.
Perhaps the chief significance of the Springbok Club today is that forms part of a closely-linked network of far-right groups occupying the space between the Conservative Party and the British National Party (BNP). Unlike the Monday Club, which has been formally repudiated by the Conservative Party Leadership , the Springbok Club is free to invite MPs and other senior Conservative figures to address its meetings (Conservative MPs are forbidden to be members of the Monday Club or to address its meetings) despite the fact that it has been repeatedly claimed in the national press that the views of the Club are at least as extreme as those of the Monday Club.
The Guardian, Progress Magazine,
Membership numbers are not divulged, but in 2002 the circulation of the regular Springbok Cyber Newsletter was stated to be 390
History
The Springbok Club was founded in 1996 as a merger between the White Rhino Club and the Rhodesian Forum, which consisted mainly of expat white Zimbabweans and South Africans and Britons who had lived and worked in both countries. According to its website, "The organisation advocates and works towards the re-establishment of civilised (sic) rule in Southern Africa".
The Club holds regular monthly meetings in the London area featuring guest speakers reporting on the current situation in Southern Africa, as well as other speakers who support its basic aims and objectives. It also claims a growing branch structure both in the UK and around the western world.
The founder and prime mover of the Springbok Club is Alan Harvey, current Chair of the Swinton circle and a former National Front Acivist.
The principles of the Club are officially stated to be:-
i) To bring together those Southern Africans living in exile and others who support the aims and objectives of the organisation on a regular social and informative basis.
ii) To inform those of a similar background still living on the African continent of our support for their rights and liberties, and our concern for the current dangers which they may be facing.
iii) To lobby the powers that be in the outside world concerning the anarchic state of current day Africa, and to advocate that steps be taken to restore civilised rule to the continent.
Alan Harvey has further stated "I think it is quite clear where our true sympathies lie, and if there is any ambiguity in anyone's mind then the presence of the real (sic) South African flag on our logo should leave no-one in any doubts! In a nutshell our policy can be summed up in one sentence: "We want our countries back, and believe this can now only come about by the re-establishment of civilised European rule (sic) throughout the African continent."
Guest speakers
The club organises regular functions. Guest speakers in the past have included:
* Neil Hamilton former Conservative Minister.
* The Earl of Burford
* Anthony LoBaido, of the Internet-based news service WorldNetDaily
* Robert Henderson, controversial cricket writer
* Andrew Roberts, historian and author
* Dennis Delderfield, National Chair of the New Britain Party.
* Jacques Arnold, former Conservative MP for Gravesham and a former Home Office minister.
* W. Denis Walker, former Rhodesian cabinet minister and Secretary of The Monday Club.
* Andrew Hunter, formerly Conservative MP for Basingstoke.
* Frank Maloney, boxing manager and official UKIP candidate at the 2004 London mayoral elections.
* Sir Robert Peliza, the former Chief Minister of Gibraltar.
* Prof. David Marsland, the Director of Research in the Department of Health and Social Care at Brunel University.
In addition, the Northern Ireland Branch of the Springbok Club held a special meeting to celebrate the achievements of the British Empire in June 2004, where the guest speaker was the Rev. Martin Smyth MP, the UUP MP for Belfast South.
Andrew Roberts controversy
In 2001 the historian Andrew Roberts is stated to have given the Springbok Club "an inspiring after-dinner speech in which he outlined the history of 19th century British colonial expansionism and the foundation of Rhodesia, detailing the events which made UDI inevitable in 1965, and bringing the story up to date by reminding everyone of the disasters of modern-day Zimbabwe. He finished his speech by proposing a toast to the Springbok Club, which he said he considered the heir to previous imperial achievements."
The Independent journalist Johann Hari, in an attack on Roberts's allegedly right-wing views argued:-
"In 2001, Roberts spoke to a dinner of the Springbok Club, a group that regards itself as a shadow white government of South Africa and calls for 'the reestablishment of civilized European rule throughout the African continent'. Founded by a former member of the neo-fascist National Front, the club flies the flag of apartheid South Africa at every meeting. The dinner was a celebration of the thirty-sixth anniversary of the day the white supremacist government of Rhodesia announced a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, which was pressing it to enfranchise black people. Surrounded by nostalgists for this racist rule, Roberts, according to the club's website, 'finished his speech by proposing a toast to the Springbok Club, which he said he considered the heir to previous imperial achievements'.
"The British High Commission in South Africa has accused the club of spreading 'hate literature'. Yet Roberts's fondness for the Springbok Club is not an anomaly; it is perfectly logical to anybody who has read his writing, which consists of elaborate and historically discredited defenses for the actions of a white supremacist empire--the British--and a plea to the United States to continue its work."
Roberts responded:-
"I must respond to Johann Hari's despicable and cowardly attack on me in your pages ('White Man for the Job', April 23). (Cowardly because he knows that, if he called me a white supremacist in a British publication, I would sue him for libel and doubtless take tens of thousands of pounds off him for the entirely undeserved slur.)
"I do not have links to white supremacism. In 2001, as the biographer of Lord Salisbury, I spent an evening giving an historical speech on the founding of the town of Salisbury (now Harare) in Zimbabwe at a dinner of expat South Africans, where I recall no racist remarks of any kind being made. I don't know any better than Hari if there were racists in the audience, but if there were it certainly does not make me one. The weasel phrase 'links to' implies he knows that."
Hari responded:-
"First: Roberts says he did not realize the Springbok Club--a group he toasted as 'the heir to previous imperial achievements' on the anniversary of Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence--was a white supremacist organization. Perhaps he should have noticed the flag of apartheid South Africa, which was flown at the meeting he addressed, according to Africa News. Perhaps he should have looked at the organization's founding statements, which call for 'the re-establishment of civilized European rule throughout the African continent'.
"Perhaps he should have Googled them and discovered they have been accused by the British High Commission in South Africa of spreading 'hate literature'. Perhaps he should have looked at the list of previous speakers hosted by the group. The star turn preceding Roberts by a few months was Robert Henderson, a cricket writer notorious for saying that black and Asian people should be banned from England's cricket team--and for harassing Tony Blair's office so severely with his racist obsessions that the police had to be contacted.
"Roberts says, 'I don't know any better than Hari if there were racists in the audience'. But Roberts, after reading my article, does know. The groups' founder and leader, Alan Harvey, is a former member of the neo-fascist National Front, and he claims nonwhite people in apartheid South Africa were 'very happy, and not in the slightest oppressed'. He need only look at the group's website to see that it exists solely for racist purposes.
"The fact that Roberts apparently did not sense any racism at an explicitly, aggressively racist meeting under a white-supremacist flag to mark the anniversary of a white-supremacist declaration--and happily toasted attendees--reinforces my point, rather than rebutting it."
Accusations of far-right extremism
From its inception, the prime mover of the Springbok Club has been Alan Harvey, a former National Front activist, and the Springbok Club has frequently been linked with Far-Right Extremism.
In July 2001 the website of the ultra-Right wing, White Supremacist Nationalist Movement of the United States made the following claims:
Harvey pushes empire for repatriation outlet
Former South African terms aliens "dangerous"
LONDON - Alan Harvey says that he is working to restore the British Empire. And his Springbok Club is his vehicle. "Re-establishment of a British colony -- any colony -- would make it infinitely easier to remove the dangerously large number of aliens from the UK," he said. Harvey, who escaped South Africa, says he regards Nationalists as "my best contacts in America, who I urge to support the plan."
All the Way showcases white supremacists such as Alan Harvey, Steve McDonald, Bob Grant, Ken Hamblin, Tavis Smiley, Richard French, James Meredith, Jim Hood, Hal Turner and, perhaps most controversially, Edgar Ray Killen. It bills itself as "the longest-running continually published nationalist newspaper."
An active member of the Springbok Club was Bill Binding, who was deputy head of the British Ku Klux Klan. In 1997, Binding stood as a BNP parliamentary candidate in Dagenham, east London. At his death in November 2007 Binding was described on the official Springbok Club website as "a former dedicated ExCo member of the Springbok Club/ELC"
The Springbok Club has repeatedly described Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist". The Club's official website states:-
"President P.W. Botha told Mandela way back in 1985, that he could be a free man as long as he did one thing: Publicly renounce violence. Mandela refused. That is why Mandela remained in prison until the appeaser F.W. de Klerk freed him unconditionally. The bottom line is that Nelson Mandela never publicly renounced violence - and we should never forget that."
The website praises a poster captioned "Hang Nelson Mandela" as:-
"Poster distributed by the Federation of Conservative Students (the official Conservative Party student organisation) in Britain during the early 1980s, clearly illustrating that people overseas were more aware of the evil nature of Mandela and his fellow ANC terrorists than most people in South Africa were."

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