Andrew Hunter (British politician)
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Andrew Robert Frederick Hunter (born January 8, 1943, St Albans) is a United Kingdom politician and a member of the Orange Order. He was Member of Parliament for Basingstoke from 1983 until 2005. From 1990 - 2001 he was Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Monday Club and is currently (2008) Chairman , succeeding Lord Sudeley.
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[edit] Early life
He is the son of an RAF Squadron Leader. He went to St George's School, Harpenden and studied at the University of Durham gaining a BA in Theology in 1966 and an MA in History in 1968. He gained a Diploma in Education from Jesus College, Cambridge in 1967 then studied at Westcott House, Cambridge. From 1968-71, he worked in manufacturing industry. He was a Classics teacher at Harrow School for 12 years from 1971-83.
[edit] Parliamentary career
He contested Southampton Itchen in 1979.
Hunter was first elected to Basingstoke as a Conservative in the 1983 election. He is a member of the Conservative Monday Club and its Vice-Chairman 1991 - 2001, when he was ordered by the Conservative Party to quit the Club. Since retiring as an MP he is once again Deputy-Chairman of the Club. Until 2002, he was a patron of the magazine Right Now!.
Andrew Hunter was active in thoroughly researching and exposing the Irish Republican Army (IRA) links with other groups, including the South African African National Congress (ANC), and in July 1988 called for Margaret Thatcher to deport all ANC members then in Britain.[1] At the October 1988 Conservative Party Conference, Western Goals (UK) held a fringe meeting on the subject of "International Terrorism - how the West can fight back". Andrew Hunter, Sir Alfred Sherman, the Rev. Martin Smyth, MP, and Harvey Ward, were the speakers. Andrew Hunter gave considerable detail to the meeting concerning top-level links between the IRA and ANC. For these exposures, he was given a permanent police guard for over a decade and was forced to move his home twice.
On 3 February 1997, he had a letter published in the The Times, which he signed as Chairman of the Parliamentary Conservative Northern Ireland Committee, attacking the 'Bloody Sunday' Inquiry, calling it "a mistake" and saying that it "dishonours the memory of all who have died in The Troubles".
In 2002, he withdrew from the Conservative Party, in order to fight elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly as a candidate of the Democratic Unionist Party. He had family and Orange Order connections with Northern Ireland and had opposed the Belfast Agreement. The elections were held in November 2003, when he stood in Lagan Valley, and he failed to gain a seat, coming seventh in a six-seat constituency. On December 10, 2004, he announced that he had joined the DUP Parliamentary Group in the House of Commons, the first Member of Parliament for a seat in Great Britain to represent a party based on the island of Ireland since T.P. O'Connor who had represented the Liverpool Scotland (UK Parliament constituency) from 1885 to 1929.
In February 2005, Hunter raised the case of Jeremy Bamber in Parliament, questioning his conviction for murdering his adoptive family.[2]
Hunter stepped down from the House of Commons at the 2005 general election and suggested he would move to Northern Ireland to become more involved with DUP politics. However, the subsequent death of his wife, Jan, led to a hold on these plans.
[edit] Personal life
He married Janet Bourne in 1972 in Harrow, and they have a son and a daughter.
[edit] References
- Right Now! magazine, (Various editions).
- Young European newsletter, December 1988 edition, published by Western Goals (UK), London.
