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Springbok Club
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Springbok Club is a far-right, neo-Imperialist organisation based in the United Kingdom, which supports a return to what it considers to be civilised rule in South Africa and the erstwhile Rhodesia (in practice, this would be white minority rule). The Club has close links to the London Swinton Circle and the Empire Loyalist Club. More fundamentally, it advocates a revived "forward-looking" British Empire and Commonwealth, and re-creation of the overseas empires of the other great European nations, 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 is strongly committed to causes such as continuing British Sovereignty over its existing overseas territories such as Gibraltar, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and 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 organises regular functions. Guest speakers in the past have included Lord Bellhaven and Stenton, the Earl of Burford, Dennis Delderfield, Dr. Philip du Toit, Dr. Ferdi Hartzenberg, Robert Henderson, the Marques de Lendinez, Frank Maloney, Professor David Marsland, Sir Robert Peliza, Group Captain Peter Petter-Bowyer, Albert Poggio, Andrew Roberts, Johnny Rodrigues, Maurice Xiberras, and former Conservative Members of Parliament Jacques Arnold, Neil Hamilton and Andrew Hunter.
It 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 S.A. Patriot (now S.A. Patriot-in-Exile) since 1981.