Harvey Proctor

(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.

Background

Proctor's father Albert was a master baker. Harvey Proctor himself was born in Pontefract in West Yorkshire, going to the Scarborough High School for Boys and then the University of York 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. In the summer of 1967, whilst Chairman-elect of the Association, he was invited to produce a number of half hour political programmes for broadcast on offshore Radio 270, which included interviews with MPs John Biggs-Davison and Patrick Wall.

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.

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.

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.

Proctor opposed the call to boycott the Moscow Olympics in 1980 on libertarian grounds. He also opposed establishing the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1982, voted for the return of Capital punishment and rebelled on votes over the EEC. Proctor supported the Freedom of Information Act. In the 1983 election Proctor's seat was divided, and he moved with the more Conservative-voting part to the new Billericay seat.

Scandal

In June 1986, the People newspaper published claims that Proctor had taken part in spanking and cane beating of male prostitutes, aged between 17 and 21, in his London flat. Had this occurred 20 years later, Proctor would not have broken the law, but the age of consent for homosexuals was 21 in 1986, as opposed to 16 for heterosexuals. Proctor did not sue for libel when the allegations were made. In 1987, Proctor was charged with gross indecency and resigned his 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.

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.