Link with Tories claimed

CLIVE Derby-Lewis is no stranger to Britain and has spoken at a Conservative Party conference fringe meeting and in meeting-rooms of the House of Lords. The Western Goals Institute, of which he is president, claims close links with the Conservative Party despite a description of it from Sir Norman Fowler, party chairman, as 'an extreme anti-Conservative group'.

Peter Hain, Labour MP for Neath, is to table a parliamentary question today calling on John Major to detail any links between Conservatives and Mr Derby-Lewis.

Andrew Smith, chairman and driving force behind Western Goals, rebuked Sir Norman for his attack and a claim that Conservative Central Office knew of no member of the institute who shared membership with the Conservative Party.

'By far the majority of those associated with the institute hold Conservative Party membership, while others have served as party officers at constituency or area level. Conservative MPs have spoken at our meetings, as have Downing Street policy advisers. Western Goals describes itself very clearly as a conservative organisation,' he said in a letter to the Independent last year.

The letter was also signed by Gregory Lauder-Frost, vice-president of Western Goals, a former active member of the Monday Club, another right-wing Conservative organisation. Lauder-Frost was jailed for two years last November for stealing pounds 100,000 from Riverside Health Authority.

Mr Derby-Lewis visited Britain in June 1989 with Andries Treurnicht, leader of the far-right South African Conservative Party. They addressed a meeting in the House of Lords after a 'fact-finding' tour of Brick Lane, a Bengali area in London.

Later that year he shared a platform with a representative of the French National Front at the Tory party conference in Blackpool. The Anti-Nazi League reports a further visit in 1990 when he is said to have spoken at a Monday Club meeting, again in the House of Lords.