Britain’s Deep State- London’s Lobby Groups @ 55 Tufton Street
55 Tufton Street, London Lobby Groups
The offices of 55 Tufton Street in Westminster are home to right-of-centre organisations
55 Tufton Street is a 4 storey townhouse on Tufton Street, in Westminster, London. Since the 2010s the building has hosted “lobby groups & think tanks” related to Brexit & climate change.
The 9 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".
The Observer describes 55 Tufton Street as the focus of "a network of opaquely funded organisations", and describes them as pursuing "different strands of the same political goals. The Independent describes it as "the centre of a network of skepticism towards Europe and climate change ".
Brexit Central
Brexit Central was a pro-Brexit news website & was active from 2016 to 2020.
Business for Britain
Business for Britain was a Eurosceptic campaign group which seeks renegotiation of the relationship between the UK and EU. The campaign was founded in April 2013, by five hundred business leaders. The group published non peer reviewed and misleading research on the voting record of the UK in the European Parliament in 2014, called Measuring Britain’s influence in the Council of Ministers.
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". The Times has described Civitas as an ally of former Education Secretary Michael Gove. It is opposed to green regulations, to legislation designed to reduce climate change, and to greater reliance on renewable energy. It has been criticised by Transparify for its “opaque” operations.
European Foundation
The European Foundation is a Eurosceptic think tank based in UK. The organisation produces the European Journal. During the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, it published an influential paper promoting skepticism about anthropogenic climate change.
Global Vision
Global Vision is a British Eurosceptic campaign group. It is an independent, not-for-profit group, with no explicit links with any political party. 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.
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. The GWPF as well as some of its prominent members have been characterized as promoting climate change denial. 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, Eurosceptic political pressure group organisation that campaigned and lobbied for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union following the 'Leave' result of the EU referendum on 23 June 2016. It ceased to operate on 31 January 2020, when the UK left the EU, with its website stating that it had “achieved its aims.”
Migration Watch UK
Migration Watch UK is a British think-tank and campaign group which argues for lower immigration into the United Kingdom. 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. New Culture Forum (NCF) is a right wing think tank, whose mission is described as "challenging the cultural orthodoxies dominant in the media, academia, education, and British culture in its widest sense."
Taxpayers' Alliance
The TaxPayers' Alliance is a right-wing pressure group in UK in 2004 to campaign for a low tax society. The group had about 18,000 registered supporters as of 2008; it reported 55,000 supporters by September 2010.
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. The TaxPayers' Alliance has close links and overlap of personnel with other Eurosceptic think tanks based at 55 Tufton Street.
UK2020
UK2020 is a former resident of the building, a right-wing think tank founded 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 modular nuclear reactors. It also campaigned against climate change related regulations and subsidies in the energy sector.
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.
Influence on government policy
This zealous ideological clique is 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?
Apart from being a permanent base for right-of-centre groups, the block also hosts frequent events run by like-minded organisations – the best known of which is the Young Britons Foundation. This is the think-tank set up to train young Tories that hit the headlines last year after young party activist committed suicide amid allegations of bullying.