the Reform Club

People
act as though Judaism is just
another religion like
Christianity or Islam. It’s
not. It’s a creed of
domination and racial
superiority.

The
Independent

London, Wednesday, April 23,
2003

Reform
Club moves to expel friend of Holocaust denier

By Ian Burrell Media and Culture Correspondent

A former fashion model who married into aristocracy is facing expulsion from one of Britain’s most historic private clubs over accusations of anti-Semitism.

Lady Renouf of Kensington, the former wife of the late New Zealand financier Sir Frank “The Bank” Renouf, has been described as “unfit” to be a member of the Reform Club, in Pall Mall in
London.

The Reform was established 160 years ago as a bastion of liberal and progressive thought. Past members have included the writers Henry James, H G
Wells, E M Forster and Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle.

But not all literary figures are welcome. Lady Renouf’s decision to invite to the club David Irving, the historian who was denounced
by a High Court judge in 2000 as a racist, an anti-Semite and a falsifier of history, had already caused outrage among many fellow Reform members.

Lady Renouf, who is in her fifties, has maintained that Irving has a right to freedom of speech. But an article published in The Independent on
Sunday this month, highlighting her presence at an American conference of extreme right-wingers, may mean she has finally to bid farewell to the Reform.

The article, written by Johann Hari, recounted his meetings with Lady Renouf at the Irvine Marriott Hotel in Orange
County, California, where the conference took place last summer. She told Hari:

“People act as though Judaism
is just another religion like
Christianity or Islam. It’s not. It’s a
creed of domination and racial
superiority.”

She said she was “firm friends” with
Irving and had for two and a half months attended every day of the court case where the historian sued
the American academic Deborah
Lipstadt, after she denounced him as a
“Holocaust denier”. Irving spectacularly lost the case and was landed with costs of about £2m.

When Lady Renouf said goodbye to Hari in the hotel lobby she told him:

“It’s so good to see that so
many young people are getting involved
in our movement and seeing the truth
about the Jews.”

.
THE Reform Club has a reputation for tolerance. But this was seen as a step too far and signatures were collected for a requisition for expulsion.

[Lady Renouf]Lady
Renouf grew up in Australia as Michele
Mainwaring and she was crowned Miss
Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1968. Her current interests include acting and studying “the psychology of religion”.
When she met Sir Frank she told him she was “Countess Griaznoff”, the ex-wife of a
Russian nobleman.

They quickly married, in 1991, when the financier was 72 and she was 44. She stated on her marriage certificate that her father was dead.

But during their six-week honeymoon in
Australia, Sir Frank learnt that he did have a father-in-law after all — a New
South Wales truck driver called Arthur.
Michele and Sir Frank got divorced. But
Michele kept her title.

With her looks, her name and her quirky academic interests, Lady Renouf became a prominent figure on London’s intellectual party circuit. But her world could unravel next month when the Reform Club’s general committee meets to consider her expulsion.© 2003
Independent Digital (UK)
Ltd

Related items on this website:

The
Age (Melbourne): “Bimbo” who rattled
the old buffers
club Protests
as Evening Standard reports Mr Irving
is to be barred from London’s
Clubland
Reform
Club, which banned Irving, puts his
book in Library
The
model turned society queen, a tarnished
Holocaust historian and a

disturbingly
unsavoury anti-Semitic
email
The
Times calls Mr Irving: An unreformed
character (ho ho).
“London’s
Reform Club fails to expel Lady Renouf
over support for Mr
Irving |
Radical’s Diary:

target=”_blank”>Two
Legal Victories in England hint at Turn
of Tide
Sydney
Morning Herald (Melbourne): First we
take Newcastle, then we take
Berlin