Patrick John Haseldine (born 11 July 1942)[1] is a former British diplomat who was dismissed in August 1989 by the then Foreign Secretary, John Major, for "various disciplinary offences constituting breaches of the Diplomatic Service Regulations".[2] Patrick Haseldine was initially suspended on 7 December 1988 upon publication of a letter he had written to The Guardian newspaper in which he publicly accused then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of "self-righteous invective" over her handling of an extradition request.[2]
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He attended St Ignatius' College in London (1953–58) and enrolled at the Open University in its initial year (1971). He graduated with a BA degree in 1974.[3]
In the year prior to being recruited into HM Diplomatic Service, Haseldine was employed at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. He joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in May 1971 and within four years was posted as Attaché (Commercial) to the Paris Embassy. In January 1978, he was posted as Third Secretary (Aid), later Second Secretary (Commercial/Aid), to the British High Commission in Freetown, Sierra Leone. In November 1982, he was posted back to London and spent a year in the FCO's Southern African Department.
He was appointed in July 1983 to be an assistant on the South Africa desk in the FCO's Southern African Department (SAfD) in London where his responsibilities included monitoring the voluntary cultural and sports boycott of South Africa, and enforcing the mandatory UN arms embargo against South Africa.[2] However he was seconded to another department after his superiors deemed him unsuitable to work in a political department.[2] In January 1986, he was unsuccessful in appealing against this unfavourable performance review, which he alleged was politically motivated.[2]
For two years from 1984, he was seconded to the Office of Fair Trading before returning to the FCO in December 1986 (Defence Department).[4]
In February 1988, Haseldine was a member of the invited studio audience of Question Time.[2] Fifteen minutes into the programme, a student asked whether the British government was justified in its opposition of economic sanctions against South Africa in the face of calls for sanctions by Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu and by most of the European Community. Sir Robin Day asked the audience to raise their hands if they were in favour of economic sanctions against South Africa. Haseldine was the first member of the audience to vote on that question of sanctions.[2]
In March 1988, after repeatedly circulating material within the civil service without authorisation, Haseldine was suspended from his job in Defence Department for six months.[2] He was invited back to join the FCO's Information Department on 3 September 1988.[2]
On 7 December 1988, Haseldine wrote a letter to The Guardian from his work address (Information Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office)[2] in which he criticised the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher of using "self-righteous invective" over an extradition request for Irishman Patrick Ryan to face terrorism charges in the UK.[2] He contrasted the case to that of the Coventry Four, four South African businessmen charged in 1984 with evading the United Nations Security Council Resolution 418 ban on military exports, who were subsequently released by the Thatcher government.[5] Haseldine labelled the four South Africans "terrorists", a term deriving from Michael Dukakis and from some anti-apartheid activists calling apartheid South Africa a "terrorist state" in order to trigger automatic sanctions.[6][7]
He was immediately suspended from work on full pay.[2] In a House of Commons written question on 13 December 1988, Tam Dalyell asked the Prime Minister "when she expects to receive the report from Sir Robin Butler on the case of Mr P J Haseldine and his letter to The Guardian; and if she will make a statement?" The Prime Minister replied: "I do not expect to receive such a report. This case is being considered in accordance with procedures laid down in Diplomatic Service Regulations."[8] On 21 March 1989, following a disciplinary proceeding, he was called to resign or be dismissed.[2] He appealed to the Foreign Secretary against this decision, but Geoffrey Howe rejected the appeal; he was sacked on 3 August 1989.
Haseldine submitted an application to the European Court of Human Rights in 1991, claiming that his dismissal for writing the letter to Guardian contravened his right to freedom of expression, but the ECHR declared his application inadmissible the following year.[2]
Haseldine wrote a series of letters to The Guardian newspaper, promoting the conspiracy theory that South Africa is behind the Lockerbie bombing[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] and later submitted two unsuccessful petitions to 10 Downing Street, citing the criticism of the Lockerbie investigation by UN observer Hans Köchler, and calling for a new UN inquiry into the bombing. Haseldine went on to run a cafe in Ongar, Essex,[17] and stood as a Labour candidate for the Ongar Division in the May 6, 1993 Essex County Council elections.[18]
