Harvey Proctor
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(Keith) Harvey Proctor (born 16 January 1947) was a British Conservative Member of Parliament. He represented Basildon from 1979 to 1983 and Billericay from 1983 to 1987. Proctor became known for his right-wing views and for the manner in which scandal forced the end of his Parliamentary career.
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[edit] Background
Proctor's father Albert was a master baker and he was born in Pontefract in Yorkshire, going to the Scarborough High School for Boys and then York University where he read History. He had joined the Young Conservatives at the age of 14 in 1961 and was Chairman of York University Conservative Association in 1967–1969.
[edit] Right-wing affiliations
Having welcomed Enoch Powell's controversial speech of April 1968, Proctor became an active member of the Conservative Monday Club. He was the Club's Assistant Director from 1969 to 1971 and a member of its Executive Council from 1983 until he stood down as an MP in 1987. In April 1982 he made a bid for election as the Club's Chairman but was defeated. He was well known for his views opposing immigration, and for many years was Chairman of the Club's Immigration and Repatriation Committee (later renamed, under him, the Immigration and Race Relations Committee). He contributed an article to the Club's newspaper Right Ahead (October 1985 Conservative Party Conference issue), entitled Blackpool Revisited calling for an examination of the immigration issue. However, Proctor was alive to the politics of the issue and in 1973 moved to purge members of the National Front from the Monday Club.
[edit] Candidatures
In 1972 Proctor, then working as a researcher for anti-Common Market Conservative MPs, was adopted as candidate for Hackney South and Shoreditch. He fought the seat at both the February and October general elections of 1974.
[edit] Parliament
It was generally regarded as surprising that Proctor won the selection for Basildon in 1978. The seat was not expected to be easy for the Conservatives to win, but Proctor was elected in the 1979 election after a campaign in which he raised the need for restricting the number of coloured immigrants. He returned to this theme, also advocating payment for repatriation, during his first term in Parliament.
Although right-wing, Proctor opposed the call to boycott the Moscow Olympics in 1980 on libertarian grounds. He also opposed establishing the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1982, and rebelled on votes over the EEC. Proctor supported the Freedom of Information Act and voted in favour of lowering the age of consent on homosexuality. In the 1983 election Proctor's seat was divided, and he moved with the more Conservative-voting part to the new Billericay seat.
[edit] Scandal
Proctor was one of the Conservative MPs identified as having links with the far right by an edition of the BBC's Panorama documentary strand in 1984; as with the other MPs, which included Neil Hamilton and Gerald Howarth, Proctor sued and won damages. However, he had already in September 1981 faced accusations that he had a homosexual affair. He denied the claim and won the backing of his Constituency association.
In June 1986, the People newspaper published claims that Proctor had taken part in spanking and cane beating of male prostitutes in his London flat. The first rent boy to come out was gay and black. Proctor was nicknamed "Whacko" by the Sunday tabloids in 1986. Further allegations, together with photographs, were published that September; the paper turned its evidence over to the Crown Prosecution Service. Proctor denied the paper's story and again won the backing of his constituency (the executive of Billericay Conservative Association backed him by 30 to 10, although several members resigned in protest). Stories also were published regarding Proctor's hostile attitude to Indian constituents who went to him for assistance.
Months later Proctor was the star of the news stands once more as more revelations about his private life surfaced, in particular a story concerning a holiday in Agadir, Morocco. The Sunday People headline for the story read "Naked Arab Boy Under Proctor's Bed". The story was highlighed further in the subsequent week in The Daily Mirror in March 1987. Proctor again won the backing of the Billericay Conservatives, one of whom asserted "I can spot a homosexual at fifty feet. Harvey Proctor is not one of them." However, shortly after, Proctor was charged with gross indecency and resigned the candidature. He was succeeded as MP by Teresa Gorman at the General Election the following month. At his trial in May 1987, Proctor pleaded guilty and was fined a total of £1,450.
[edit] Post-Parliamentary career
In 1988, with financial backing from former colleagues, including Michael Heseltine and Jeffrey Archer, he opened two shops selling luxury shirts. The shops were called "Proctors" and sold (among other things) a range of knotted silk cufflinks called "Harvey's Nuts". This prompted the tabloids to call Proctor the "shirt-lifting ex-M.P."
In 1992 Proctor and Neil Hamilton, then a government minister, were assaulted by two men on a "gay bashing expedition" (although Hamilton is not homosexual himself). Hamilton's nose was broken in the attack in Proctor's shop in Richmond.
In 2000 Proctor's stores were forced into liquidation after legal action by Customs and Excise over an unpaid VAT bill.
[edit] Publications
- Immigration, Repatriation, & the C.R.E., by K.Harvey Proctor, M.P., John R. Pinniger, M.A., with a foreword by Sir Ronald Bell, Q.C., M.P., published by the Monday Club, 1981, (P/B).
- Immigration - An Untenable Situation by K.Harvey Proctor, M.P., and John R. Pinniger, M.A., Policy Paper from the Monday Club's Immigration and Repatriation Policy Committee, October, 1981.
- Race Relations & Immigration by K.Harvey Proctor, M.P., and John R. Pinniger, M.A., Policy Paper from the Monday Club's Immigration & Race Relations Committee, October 1982.
- Blackpool Revisited, (calling for an examination of the Immigration issue), in Right Ahead, Monday Club newspaper, October 1985 Conservative Party Conference issue.
[edit] External links
- BBC News 'On this day' reports on Proctor's 1987 trial.
[edit] References
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Eric Moonman |
Member of Parliament for Basildon 1979–1983 |
Succeeded by David Amess |
| Preceded by (constituency recreated) |
Member of Parliament for Billericay 1983–1987 |
Succeeded by Teresa Gorman |
