Robin Birley (businessman)

Robin Marcus Birley (born 19 February 1958) is an English businessman, entrepreneur and political activist. He is the son of Lady Annabel Goldsmith and the night club owner Mark Birley. He had a brother, Rupert, who disappeared and is presumed deceased, and has a sister, India Jane Birley, from whom he is estranged.

Birley owns and runs 5 Hertford Street, a private members' club in Mayfair, which opened in June 2012 after a £30 million building and refurbishment programme. Fashion designer Rifat Ozbek designed the interior of the club.

Birley also owns and runs Birley Sandwiches, a chain of 14 sandwich bars in the City of London and Canary Wharf.

Until 2004 he was chairman of the Democracy Movement, a crossparty pressure group once financed by Paul Sykes that succeeded the efforts of the now defunct Referendum Party. The Democracy Movement actively campaigned against a European Union constitution and a single European currency.

A conservative Eurosceptic, Birley stood as a candidate for the Referendum Party, founded by his stepfather Sir James Goldsmith with the aim of creating a referendum on UK membership in the European Union.

In 1998, Birley began his work with Chilean Supporters Abroad. During a break in the trial of Chile's former president Augusto Pinochet, Birley welcomed him to England and helped to finance a sumptuous residence for him in Wentworth, Surrey, as well as a pro-Pinochet pamphlet. Birley stated: "It's also an abuse of hospitality to ambush an old man when he has come to this country year after year. He has done an immense amount for Chile. No one is supporting him and I have sympathy for the underdog.". Pinochet was the leader of a military junta which overthrew the democratically elected government of Chile in 1973.

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