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TheSociety for Individual Freedom (SIF) is aUnited Kingdom-based association oflibertarians,classical liberals,free-marketconservatives and others promotingindividual freedom. It has links to the British intelligence community.[1]
The website of the Society states that "The Society of Individualists was founded in 1942, with many of its leaders and supporters, including its first presidentSir Ernest Benn, drawn from those associated with the remnant individualist wing of theLiberal Party. In 1944 the Society of Individualists merged with the National League for Freedom, which itself had been formed from those associated with the explicitly anti-socialist wing of theConservative Party. The Society for Individual Freedom took on its present name in 1947".[2]
George Kennedy Young became president sometime after his departure fromMI6 in 1961. Other notable officers include its chairman, ProfessorPeter Walter Campbell, founder of the Dept of Politics at Reading and founding chairman of the Conservative Group for Homosexual Equality (CGHE –LBGT).[3]Gerald Howarth, later a Conservative MP, served as the organisation's General Secretary from 1969 to 1971.[4]
In 1967 the Young Libertarians, the youth organisation of SIF, broke off to create theLibertarian Alliance. There was an overlap of members and officers between the LA and the SIF.
The SIF is independent of all political parties and relies entirely on voluntary subscriptions and donations.[citation needed]
The SIF advocates personalfreedom and less state control generally (e.g. it is opposed tocensorship andidentity cards), and a genuinelyfree enterprise economy including low taxation and no state subsidies to industry. Its membership tends to be stronglyEurosceptic.[citation needed]
The SIF campaigned for the institution of the UK's ParliamentaryOmbudsman beginning in 1959, and in 1961, published the firstEnglish language book on such institutions,Occasion for Ombudsman: Is a Grievance Man Necessary for Britain?, by journalistT. E. Utley. The campaign for the Ombudsman system – for an unelectedadjudicator to help prevent bureaucraticmaladministration – eventually succeeded. In 1967 theParliamentary Commissioner for Administration was instituted.
In 1975 its chairman becameJohn Monson, 11th Baron Monson, a position he kept for the next 35 years.[5]Monson's most controversial campaign was against compulsory use of seat belts which eventually failed but led to accusations of irresponsibility.[5]
In 1994 the SIF publishedThe Power to Destroy, a study of the British tax system, by ProfessorD. R. Myddelton.
In his 1981 book, former counter-terrorism operative Gordon Winter of the South AfricanBureau of State Security recalls a briefing with his London-based handler, Alf Bouwer, describing the Society as a British intelligence "front" for "disseminating Establishment-type propaganda", namely opposition to the free immigration of black people to Britain. He was informed that there were two intelligence officers operating within the organisation, former presidentGeorge Kennedy Young and broadcasterRoss McWhirter, the latter being murdered by the IRA in 1975.[1]
The Society for Individual Freedom regularly offers public meetings with notable speakers, and holds occasional luncheons at the Houses ofParliament.
The SIF has two related campaigns. Tell-IT calls for information technology to be used to provide information on outcomes of drugs and treatments and to make them known and available to both doctors and patients. Choice in Personal Safety (CIPS) campaigns against compulsion in seatbelt laws and other related matters.[6]
The SIF also publishes a journal,The Individual.
They are a member ofBacklash, which was formed in 2005 in order to oppose a new law criminalising possession of "extreme pornography".
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