Renouf too much for liberal elite

The former wife of a New Zealand financier is in the firing line from the British elite, who claim she should no longer be a member of an exclusive London club because of her outspoken views.

Lady Michele Renouf, the late Sir Frank Renouf's third wife, has been described as unfit to remain in one of Britain's most historic private clubs, the Reform Club based in Pall Mall, the Independent newspaper has reported.

She has been outspoken in her anti-Semitic views, is known to associate with those who have similar views, and was this month seen attending an American conference of extreme right-wingers.

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

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 outraged fellow Reform members.

Lady Renouf, in her 50s, maintained that Mr Irving had a right to freedom of speech.

In an article about her, the Independent's Johann Hari recounted his meetings with Lady Renouf at the Irvine Marriott Hotel in Orange County, California, where a conference of extreme right-wingers took place.

"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 told Hari.

She said she was "firm friends" with Irving and had attended every day of the 2 1/2-month court case when the historian sued American academic Deborah Lipstadt for denouncing him as a "Holocaust denier".

Irving lost the case and was landed with costs of £2 million ($5.75 million).

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 her latest antics were a step too far.

Signatures were collected from members for a requisition for expulsion.

Lady Renouf grew up in Australia as Michele Mainwaring and was crowned Miss Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1968.

She takes an interest in 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 married in 1991, when the financier was aged 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 learned that he did have a father-in-law, a New South Wales truck driver called Arthur.

Lady Renouf and Sir Frank got divorced, but she kept her title and became a prominent figure on London's intellectual party circuit.

The Reform Club's general committee meets next month to consider her expulsion.

- NZPA