Dear Grant,
It is with some alarm that those of us in the centre ground of British politics learnt this week of the existence of the Tory fringe group Traditional Britain. Today’s Independent reports that the group’s vice chairman, Mr Gregory Lauder-Frost, campaigns for “traditional” values in the Conservative Party. You might be aware that he has caused deep offence with his recent comments about Doreen Lawrence: “we do not feel there is any merit in raising such a person to the peerage. She’s a complete nobody. She has been raised there for politically correct purposes. She’s just a campaigner about her son’s murder.”
It is also reported that Mr Lauder-Frost believes that anyone living in Britain not of “European stock” should be offered “assisted voluntary repatriation” to their “natural homeland.” I know you will find these views as offensive as I do. I am, however, shocked that such views are still alive in what I hoped was a modernised Conservative Party.
Secondly, I am sure you will agree that Traditional Britain, as a group, holds deeply offensive views. Its Facebook page calls for minorities to return to their “natural homeland” and refers to respected ethnic minority British MPs from the Labour Party and the Conservative Party as “Nigerian” and “foreign”.
You will recall that the Monday Club held similarly offensive views and that in October 2001, Iain Duncan Smith was forced to finally suspend it from the Conservative Party. Do you agree that now is the time for David Cameron to show some leadership and suspend any links between the Conservative Party and Traditional Britain? Will you go further and make it absolutely clear that membership of the Conservative and Unionist Party is incompatible with membership of Traditional Britain? I know this will be difficult for you. Under your leadership of Conservative Campaign Headquarters, alarms bell apparently failed to ring when one of your backbenchers made enquiries about this group. As you know, that backbench MP subsequently spoke at a Traditional Britain dinner.
All of us are also aware of the plummeting Tory membership and I appreciate that you won’t want to lose yet more members on your watch.
However, I genuinely hope you will agree with me that these outdated and offensive views should have no place in a modern, mainstream British political party.
I look forward to your response.
Best wishes,
Jon Ashworth
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