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Michael Brown (British politician)

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Michael Brown
Member of Parliament
for Brigg and Cleethorpes
Brigg and Scunthorpe (1979–1983)
In office
3 May 1979 – 8 April 1997
Preceded byJohn Ellis
Succeeded byconstituency abolished
Personal details
Born (1951-07-03) 3 July 1951 (age 73)
Political partyBrexit Party
Other political
affiliations		Conservative (until 2019)

Michael Russell Brown (born 3 July 1951) is a British political journalist, noted as a former Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) from 1979 to 1997.

Early life

Brown was educated at the Andrew Cairns Secondary Modern School, Sussex, and the University of York, where he was friends with, and a contemporary of both Harvey Proctor and Christine Hamilton (née Holman).[1] He was a member of Alcuin College and the York University Conservative Association.

After studying for a year at Middle Temple, he worked as a graduate management trainee for Barclays Bank from 1972 to 1974 then as a lecturer and tutor at Swinton Conservative College from 1974 to 1975.[citation needed]

From 1975 to 1976, he was a part-time research assistant to Michael Marshall MP, working for Nicholas Winterton MP from 1976 to 1979.[2]

Westminster

Brown was selected for the marginal constituency of Brigg and Scunthorpe and was elected at the 1979 general election.[citation needed] In 1983, following favourable boundary changes, he was elected for the new seat of Brigg and Cleethorpes.[citation needed] This followed a bitter selection battle between Brown and Michael Brotherton, who was MP for the Louth constituency, which included the towns of Immingham and Cleethorpes.[citation needed]

Brown threatened to resign from parliament when the village of North Killingholme, in the centre of his constituency was marked as a potential site for nuclear dumping.[3]

Brown served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Douglas Hogg, Minister of State at the Department of Trade and Industry, from 1989 to 1990, and then at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1990 to 1992.[citation needed] From 1992 to 1993 he was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Patrick Mayhew, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.[citation needed] He was appointed as an Assistant Government Whip in 1993.[citation needed]

Right-wing activity

Brown was involved in the right-wing Conservative circles including the Monday Club and the Eldon League. Brown was a founding member of the No Turning Back group which included Michael Portillo, Peter Lilley and Neil Hamilton.[citation needed] Brown regarded Portillo as one of his closest friends in the early years of the 1980s claiming, "we hit it off right away." He accompanied Portillo on holidays with other friends including Laud.[4]

Southern Africa

Brown was a supporter of South Africa's ruling National Party during apartheid and visited that country with Neil Hamilton on a trip financed by the South African authorities in February 1988. Hamilton went on more than one tour of South Africa.[1]

In 1990, Brown's protégé Derek Laud became active in support of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), a political party in Namibia backed by the South African government. Laud formed a lobbying group known as Strategy Network International, which lobbied vigorously on behalf of the DTA and later, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).[1]

Cash for questions affair

Main article: Cash-for-questions affair

During his parliamentary career, Andrew Roth's Parliamentary Profiles described Brown as "an assiduous free tripper who repays his hosts".[5] During the Cash for Questions parliamentary scandal, Brown admitted to, and apologised for, accepting money to lobby on behalf of US Tobacco without declaring it.[citation needed] He was alleged to have received £6,000 from Ian Greer Associates to lobby on behalf of US Tobacco, and to have failed to declare it in the Register of Members' Interests or to ministers.[citation needed]

He was further alleged to have not declared the income from Ian Greer Associates until the payments became publicly known.[citation needed]

The Parliamentary investigation found that Brown failed to register an introduction payment from Mr Greer on behalf of US Tobacco and that he "persistently and deliberately" failed to declare an interest in Skoal Bandits in his dealings with ministers over the issue. He did not immediately declare the payment to the Inland Revenue. Mr Brown also received a free flight to Connecticut to be briefed by the company, which he did record in the Register of Members' Interests.[6][7]

Resignation

Brown resigned in May 1994 after The News of the World published pictures of him on holiday in Barbados with a 20-year-old gay man. At the time, the age of consent for homosexual activity was 21, so the paper ran the story under the headline "Lawmaker as lawbreaker".[8] After resigning, Brown subsequently acknowledged his homosexuality.[9] The media linked Brown's resignation to Prime Minister John Major's ill-fated Back to Basics campaign.[10]

After Westminster

Brown lost the election for the new Cleethorpes seat at the general election on 1 May 1997. Initially he struggled to find employment, working for David Evans' contract cleaning firm (a fellow Conservative MP who had also lost his seat).[citation needed] In April 1998 he submitted a piece for The Independent on how he was looking forward to being canvassed by the Labour Party candidates for his area in the Westminster City Council elections, which would give him an opportunity to play the kind of tricks voters often play on election candidates.[citation needed]

The piece was published and was well received.[by whom?][citation needed] It led to a regular commission as a political sketchwriter for The Independent starting in 1999,[11] as well as political commentary for other newspapers. Today[when?] he regularly appears as a commentator and newspaper reviewer on British television, particularly on BBC News 24 and Sky News.[citation needed]

He joined Nigel Farage's Brexit Party in April 2019 but said that he is not planning on contesting elections.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b c Sleaze: The Corruption of Parliament. David Leigh and Ed Vulliamy Page 50 ISBN 1857026942
  2. ^ Austin, Tim (May 1997), The Times guide to the House of Commons, Times Books, p. 104, ISBN 0-7230-0956-2
  3. ^ Baggott, Rob (1995), Pressure groups today, Manchester University Press, p. 200, ISBN 0-7190-3579-1
  4. ^ Tory Wars by Simon Waters, Page 188 ISBN 1-84275-026-7
  5. ^ Roth, Andrew; Parliamentary Profiles
  6. ^ Wolmar, Christian (9 April 1997). "Cash-for-questions row Tory adopted in secret". The Independent. Archived from the original on 8 November 2012. Retrieved 8 October 2012.
  7. ^ "The sleaze report: Five men who fell below the standards that Parliament demands from an MP". The Independent. 4 July 1997. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  8. ^ Brown, Michael (30 July 2002). "Shock news: there are gay MPs in the Tory party". The Independent. Archived from the original on 10 August 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  9. ^ Morton Rayside, David (1998). On the fringe: gays and lesbians in politics. Cornell University Press. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-8014-8374-5.
  10. ^ Morgan, Piers (2005). The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade. London: Ebury Press. p. 38. ISBN 9780091908492. Archived from the original on 7 May 2016. Retrieved 28 January 2016 – via Google Books.
  11. ^ Brown, Michael (20 February 1999). "The Week in Westminster: Pinochet and policing prove tougher than yobs for Straw". The Independent. Archived from the original on 10 November 2012. Retrieved 24 December 2010.
  12. ^ Brown, Michael (8 April 2019). "I was a Tory MP for 18 years, but I've been driven to join Nigel Farage's Brexit Party". Brexit Central. Archived from the original on 9 April 2019. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Brigg and Scunthorpe
1979–1983 		Constituency abolished
New constituency Member of Parliament for Brigg and Cleethorpes
1983–1997 		Constituency abolished
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