Robert Kilroy-Silk
Robert Michael Kilroy-Silk (born 19 May 1942) is a British politician and is well-known as the presenter of his former daytime television confessional talk show Kilroy. Onetime university lecturer and Labour Party member of Parliament (MP), he more recently stood successfully for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the 2004 election to the European Parliament, before leaving them in 2005 to found a new party called "Veritas", from which he in turn resigned as leader later the same year. In early 2004, he became embroiled in controversy concerning alleged racism of an article written by him, published in the Sunday Express.
Education and early political career
In May 1942, Robert Silk was born in Birmingham, the son of William Silk, a Royal Navy stoker, and his wife Rose. William Silk was lost at sea the following year, aged 22. Rose then married his best friend, John Kilroy, a car worker at the West Midlands Rootes plant, later British Leyland, who adopted the young boy and gave him the first part of his surname.
He was educated at Saltley Grammar School, Birmingham, and later at the London School of Economics and then became a lecturer in politics at Liverpool University from 1966-1974. He published a theoretical work, Socialism since Marx, in 1972.
He was a Labour MP for Ormskirk from 1974 to 1983 and for Knowsley North from 1983 to 1986. He was appointed Shadow Home Affairs spokesman, but resigned in 1985. In resigning his seat, he claimed that he had been victimised and assaulted by members of Militant Tendency. One documented assault was on left-wing Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, by Kilroy-Silk himself [1].
Kilroy and 'anti-Irish' controversy
In 1992 Kilroy made a comment regarding Ireland and the Irish in his Daily Express column under the guise of attacking Ray MacSharry, a former Irish government minister and EU commissioner at that time. He dismissed Ireland as a 'country peopled by priests, peasants and pixies'. The Daily Express was forced to apologise to MacSharry and the Irish people in general as a result.
Kilroy and 'anti-Arab' controversy
His show Kilroy started on 24 November 1986 as Day To Day. It ran until 2004, when the programme was cancelled by the BBC after an article entitled 'We owe Arabs nothing' by Kilroy-Silk[2] was published in the Sunday Express on 4 January. The article had originally been published in April 2003 by the same paper and 'republished in error' according to Kilroy-Silk [3], although during its first incarnation the article failed to attract the same furore from the national press or provoke any (ostensible) disciplinary action from the BBC. While the article attacks the human rights record of Arab states, it also makes little distinction between this and Arabic people in general (whom Kilroy has, in a BBC Hard Talk interview, erroneously associated with Afghans, demonstrating - according to critics like Emeka Onono - a general ignorance about Arabs [4]). One passage in the article reads
- 'We're told that the Arabs loathe us. Really? For liberating the Iraqis? For subsidising the lifestyles of people in Egypt and Jordan, to name but two, for giving them vast amounts of aid? For providing them with science, medicine, technology and all the other benefits of the West? They should go down on their knees and thank God for the munificence of the United States. What do they think we feel about them? That we adore them for the way they murdered more than 3,000 civilians on September 11 and then danced in the hot, dusty streets to celebrate the murders? That we admire them for the cold-blooded killings in Mombasa, Yemen and elsewhere? That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors?'
The article was strongly condemned by the Muslim Council of Britain and the Commission for Racial Equality. Trevor Phillips, the head of the CRE said that the affair could have a "hugely unhelpful" effect. Faisal Bodi, a columnist for The Guardian, wanted Kilroy-Silk prosecuted for "incitement to racial hatred". In an article entitled 'Islamophobia should be as unacceptable as racism' [5], he attacked Kilroy-Silk for his criticism of Islam after the proclamation of the death sentence on Salman Rushdie:
- During the Salman Rushdie affair in 1989, he (Kilroy-Silk) wrote that if Britain's "resident ayatollahs" could not "accept British values and laws then there is no reason at all why the British should feel any need, still less compulsion, to accommodate theirs". Buoyed by the support of liberals in a debate that was characterised as free speech versus censorship he went much further. "Muslims everywhere behave with equal savagery. They behead criminals, stone to death female - only female - adulteresses, throw acid in the faces of women who refuse to wear the chador, mutilate the genitals of young girls and ritually abuse animals", he wrote for the Daily Express in 1995.
However, Ibrahim Nawar, the head of Arab Press Freedom Watch came out in support of Kilroy-Silk in a Daily Telegraph article [6]
- I fully support Robert Kilroy-Silk and salute him as an advocate of freedom of expression. I would like to voice my solidarity with him and with all those who face the censorship of such a basic human right. I agree with much of what he says about Arab regimes. There is a very long history of oppression in the Arab world, particularly in the states he mentions: Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, as well as in Sudan and Tunisia.... I would also agree with Mr Kilroy-Silk's comments on the oppression of women by totalitarian Arab states. Women in Saudi Arabia even have to struggle for the right to walk unaccompanied in the street or to drive a car.
At the time, there was speculation it could affect Sunday Express owner Richard Desmond's attempt to acquire the Daily Telegraph, though Desmond later dropped the bid for unrelated reasons.
Labour MP Andrew Dismore asked why the BBC had disciplined Kilroy-Silk but had not moved against Tom Paulin, the poet and Oxford professor, after he had made allegedly anti-semitic remarks. The BBC's defenders pointed out that Paulin appeared on BBC programmes only as a pundit and commentator, and was not employed as a presenter of a programme in his own right. Subsequent to losing his permanent position, Kilroy-Silk appeared on BBC programmes in the same capacity as Paulin, as an individual commentator no longer representative of the BBC.
According to the Daily Express, 50,000 people responded in a telephone poll supporting Kilroy-Silk's reinstatement.
Kilroy-Silk's comments were inflammatory enough that on 4 December 2004 a man threw a bucket of farmyard manure over him before he was due to make an appearance on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions?. David McGrath, an unemployed man from Wilmslow, Cheshire, was later convicted of the attack. He was given a conditional discharge, and ordered to pay £200 costs to Kilroy-Silk.
UK Independence Party political career
Involvement in the European elections
In 2004, Kilroy-Silk successfully stood for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the 2004 European Parliament Election in the East Midlands region.
The result (using a system of PR) was as follows:
| Party | Votes (Percentage) |
|---|---|
| Conservatives | 371,632 (26.39%) |
| United Kingdom Independence Party | 366,498 (26.05%) |
| Labour | 294,918 (20.96%) |
| Liberal Democrats | 181,964 (12.93%) |
| British National Party | 91,860 (6.53%) |
| Green Party | 76,633 (5.44%) |
| Respect - The Unity Coalition | 20,009 (1.42%) |
| Independent Candidate | 2,615 (0.18%) |
| Independent Candidate | 847 (0.06%) |
MEPs elected:
| Seat Number | Name | Party |
|---|---|---|
| First Seat | Roger Helmer | Conservative |
| Second Seat | Robert Kilroy-Silk | UKIP |
| Third Seat | Phillip Whitehead | Labour |
| Fourth Seat | Chris Heaton-Harris | Conservative |
| Fifth Seat | Derek Clark | UKIP |
| Sixth Seat | Bill Newton Dunn | Lib Dem |
Leadership ambitions
In the 2004 Hartlepool by-election UKIP came third, ahead of the Conservative Party. At the party conference in October 2004, Kilroy-Silk called for the Conservative Party to be "killed off". The next day, in an interview on Breakfast with Frost (BBC), he expressed an interest in leading his party and criticised Roger Knapman. Following this, Paul Sykes, the businessman, and a friend of Kilroy-Silk, announced his intention to cease his partial funding of UKIP and to return his support to the Conservatives, fearing that the euro-sceptic vote might be split. The branch chairmen of UKIP were canvassed on their opinion regarding Kilroy-Silk's challenge for the party leadership. Only a minority (13%) were sympathetic to him, a result which he objected to, owing to the small proportion of party members who had been consulted. Kilroy-Silk was threatened with disciplinary action if he continued, in the view of his opponents, to bring the party into disrepute.
On 27 October 2004, he officially announced that he had withdrawn from the UKIP whip in the European Parliament, branding the party "incompetent". However, he said that he would be staying on as a member of UKIP in an independent capacity, and would continue to challenge for the leadership.
UKIP's constitution states that 70 days' notice is required before a leadership ballot can take place. With the next general election in the UK expected in spring 2005, Kilroy pushed for an EGM of the party as early as possible. On 3 November 2004, Kilroy said he intended to be leader by Christmas, though this would have been impossible under the rules.
With his attempt at the leadership going nowhere, in late 2004 and early 2005, there was speculation that Kilroy-Silk would leave UKIP and either found a new party, or join an existing one with similar views. The English Democrats party stated that it would be a natural home for the pro-English, anti-European politician. However, unable to find a party who would allow him to be leader, he found that his only option would be to set up his own party.
Leaving the party
On 20 January 2005, Kilroy announced that he had left the UKIP after nine months as a member. It came after party officials started proceedings to remove Kilroy-Silk as he became increasingly frustrated with their approach. Rumours were abound that he was planning on setting up a new party under the name "Veritas", though Kilroy-Silk initially neither confirmed nor denied them.
Veritas political career
On 30 January 2005, the plans to launch Veritas were confirmed, and boosted by the announcement that UKIP's leader in the London Assembly, Damian Hockney, had defected to Veritas, becoming its first Deputy Leader.
The party was formally launched on 2 February 2005. Kilroy-Silk's former colleagues in UKIP have given the new party the nick-name "Vanitas". In the 2005 general election, Kilroy-Silk contested the seat of Erewash, but came fourth, barely keeping his deposit.
On 12 July 2005, party member Ken Wharton announced his intention to challenge Kilroy-Silk for the leadership, claiming party members are "not being looked after". Discontented party members set up the Veritas Members Association to "put the truth back into Veritas". [7]
On 29 July 2005, Veritas announced the resignation of Kilroy-Silk as Party Leader. [8] In his resignation statement, he said: "It was clear from the general election result - and more recently that of the Cheadle byelection - that the electors are content with the old parties and that it would be virtually impossible for a new party to make a significant impact given the nature of our electoral system. We tried and failed."
Independent MEP
As of January 2006, Kilroy-Silk remains a member of the Veritas Party, but sits as an Independent MEP. Many Veritas Party members question this and are asking Patrick Eston, leader of the Veritas Party, why Kilroy-Silk is allowed to continue his party membership. [9]
Publicity stunts
On 31 January 2005, a television programme, "Kilroy: Behind the Tan: The Worlds Orangest man", was broadcast on the BBC. The programme followed him from his election as an MEP for the UK Independence Party through to his leaving and denouncement of the party. During this programme, he frequently referred to Iranians as Arabs, despite being pulled up on this error on each occasion by the reporter.
In early February 2005, it was revealed that Kilroy was working on a new television programme called "Kilroy and the Gypsies", to be broadcast on Channel 4. Andrew Lansley, Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, said: "Is there nothing Robert Kilroy-Silk won't do for publicity? I don't know why he is doing this but it is certainly not to highlight solutions to the problem."
In the programme, he spent a week living with gypsies to gain first-hand experience of their way of life and talking both to the gypsies themselves and to those in the surrounding villages.
Kilroy attempted unsuccessfully to press charges against a man who he said subjected him to a "violent attack" and "smashed a bottle of water against the side of [his] head", which "could have caused serious injury" and left him with a "red mark on the side of his head" in a "deliberate, premeditated and cowardly attack by an adult man who should have known better" while Kilroy was being interviewed by a European TV crew outside a supermarket in Erewash during the election campaign. The police's decision not to prosecute may have had something to do with the alleged assailant - the enigmatic Doktor Skum's alternative school of thought, which states that he squirted Kilroy with water from a plastic bottle before running away; this theory is corroborated by the TV crew's film of the incident, shown (twice) on Have I Got News For You, as well as a video clip from his now-defunct and aptly named TV gameshow, Shafted.
Personal life
In 1963, Kilroy-Silk married Jan Beech, a shop steward's daughter. They have a son (Dominic), a daughter (Natasha), and a grandson (Zachary). In 1990, Dominic was sentenced to 10 months in Ford open prison for mortgage fraud. [10]
See also
- Anthony Bennett
- Veritas Party
- Veritas Members Association
- Patrick Eston
- Alan Ainscow
- Colin Brown
- Ashley Merry
- David Soutter
External links
- 1942 births
- Alumni of the London School of Economics
- Members of the United Kingdom Parliament from English constituencies
- English television presenters
- British television presenters
- Living people
- Members of the European Parliament from the United Kingdom
- Veritas politicians
- UK MPs 1974-1979
- UK MPs 1979-1983
- UK MPs 1983-1987
- People from Birmingham, England
- People of Irish descent in Great Britain
- Anglo-Italians
- Party leaders