RIGHT BEHIND HARVEY

Andrew Gimson discovers

why Billericay Tories have

stood by their MP A REPORT from Scotland Yard's Serious Crimes Squad is shortly to be delivered to Sir Thomas Hetherington, the Director of Public Prosecutions. It recommends that there are grounds for charging Mr Harvey Proctor, .the Conservative MP for Biller- icay, with gross indecency, in connection with allegations that he indulged in spank- ing sessions with young male prostitutes.

Mr Proctor has consistently denied these and other distasteful suggestions which have been made about him in the press over a number of years, and especially since last June. Private Eye published a savage piece about him as long ago as 14 August 1981, describing his links with people in such organisations as the Nation- al Front, commenting that 'like many fascists, Proctor is a raging homosexualist', and referring to his 'current predilection for picking up rough trade on the Putney towpath'.

The surprising thing about Mr Proctor's case is that although he has not yet sued the newspapers in which these stories appear, he has not felt obliged to resign his seat. Most Tory MPs would long ago have done one or the other, if only to satisfy their constituency associations. Mr Proctor must have an exceptionally loyal consti- tuency association, as well as considerable personal determination, to have main- tained for so long a position which most of his colleagues would have found unten- able.

`You know as well as I do that if this country had its way, we'd chuck all the blacks out,' a middle-aged lady at Biller- icay station told me. She praised Mr Proctor for having the courage to speak his mind. Like most of the people I consulted, she attributed his electoral success largely to his line on race, which is that a multiracial society has been foisted on the British against their will, and that the voluntary repatriation of immigrants should be encouraged by generous grants. In 1979, Mr Proctor unexpectedly won the seat of Basildon, in Essex, converting the 10,000-vote Labour majority enjoyed by Mr Eric Moonman into a 5,000-vote majority for himself, the largest swing to the Tories anywhere but Anglesey accord- ing to his supporters, who acknowledge that the promise to sell council houses also contributed to the victory. In 1983, the Boundary Commission divided the consti- tuency into two seats, Basildon and Biller- icay. Mr Proctor secured nomination for the latter, which also includes four wards from the former Thurrock seat: Orsett, Stanford-le-Hope, Corringham and Fob- bing, and the Homesteads. In 1983, he was returned by a majority of nearly 15,000 votes.

Some of Mr Proctor's most impassioned supporters come from Thurrock, situated on the Thames estuary just above Tilbury, a dozen miles from Billericay itself. Last Monday, I met several of them at Grays and District Conservative Club. They do not like journalists. 'We've seen so much crap written in the press,' one of them explained. I was the only representative of the press they were meeting. 'If you cross us, we'll cross you, and I mean that,' Mr Frank Mallon, chairman of the Home- steads ward in Mr Proctor's seat, warned

me. I assured them that I would try to give a true account of their views. The meeting was arranged by Mr Ted Attewell, chair- man of the South-West Essex Monday Club, secretary of the Homesteads ward but also lull-time, unpaid, acting agent' in the new Thurrock seat, in which place he is a Tory activist of very long standing. Thurrock Conservative Association has just elected Mr Proctor its president. Ab- out 40 members of this association also belong to Billericay.

The resentment of Mr Attewell, Mr Mallon and others against the press stems not only from the stories printed about Mr Proctor. It springs also from a more general complaint: that the press never gives space to their views. They regard themselves as part of an oppressed major- ity, which believes in the repatriation of immigrants, and in ferocious punishments for criminals, but whose voice is silenced by 'them scum the left-wing press'. Be- cause the press is opposed to Mr Proctor's policies, it cooks up fictitious stories about his private life. That is why Mr Proctor's private life attracts disproportionate atten- tion.

As an example of the deceitful ways of journalists, they cited a recent issue of the Sun, in which, they said, two telephone numbers were given, one to ring if you thought Mr Proctor should go, the other if you thought he should stay. According to the Sun, the verdict was against Mr Proctor by 807 to 356. But Mr Attewell and friends in his immediate area made 40 calls, Mr Mallon made 100, Mrs Jill Schneider, Mr Proctor's agent, made 120, and Mr and Mrs Ron Marshall, two of his foremost supporters, made 200. Therefore the Sun must have fiddled the figures.

Both Mr Attewell and Mr Mallon are carpenters by trade, though Mr Mallon now runs his own business. Mr Attewell is from the Isle of Dogs, Mr Mallon from the Cut at Waterloo. Like many people in this part of Essex, they have moved out from London. Very few coloured people have moved with them, but this does not lessen the intensity of their feelings. 'It's not fair on our grandchildren,' Mr Attewell said. He believes that in 50 years' time, 53 per cent of the people in Britain will be of New Commonwealth or Pakistani descent. We should get rid of our immigrants, as the French get rid of the Algerians and the Germans the Turks. 'How long will it be before Brixton wants home rule?' Mr Attewell asked.

He also asked me: 'If someone raped your mother, what would you do?' This question made me feel like a conscientious objector, but I was not required to answer. Mr Attewell said that Mr Tim Janman, the Conservative Party's prospective par- liamentary candidate in Thurrock, thinks that criminals who mug old people should be birched and rapists should be castrated. When I telephoned Mr Janman, he qual- ified this: the birch and chemical castration should be options available to the judge in some cases. 'I find on the doorstep,' Mr Janman said, 'that most people I meet, male and female, either support castration for rape, or go further and want capital punishment.' He says he is far to the right of the previous Tory candidate in Thurrock — 'almost like comparing me with an SDP candidate' — and has hopes of overturning Dr Oonagh McDonald's Labour majority of 1,722.

Mr Attewell is strongly in favour of capital punishment, as a letter from him in this month's Conservative Newsline, pub- lished by Conservative Central Office, makes clear:

The vast majority of the electorate are in favour of the death penalty for capital crimes; and yet a number of MPs — so-called Conservatives — consistently vote against the return of the death penalty.

These MPs — in my opinion — should be deselected. It is high time that MPs listened to us, their paymasters!

I am convinced that one day people will take justice into their own hands and then we will see these do-gooders wringing their hands and complaining in the House because the people have had the guts to do what they should be doing, bringing the ultimate punishment to suit the crime.

If any of my family are killed and I get to the criminals first, then I shall take the law of retribution into my own hands.

As for Mr Mallon, he wishes to be especially hard on drug-pushers:

Drug-pushers should be executed . . . . They're destroying our youth . . . . They should be hung and left there as an example. You should have a body hanging at every docks as a warning to drug-pushers.

But Mr Janman is against capital punish- ment, for crimes other than murder, on the grounds that this would undermine death's worth, its place at the 'pinnacle' of the scale of punishments.

Not all the members of Billericay Con- servative Association show such unswerv- ing loyalty to Mr Proctor as Messrs Attewell and Mallon. Last October, there was a meeting of the executive council, at which each of the 11 branches had three

votes. Mr Ray Andrews, a Tory councillor from Orsett, described the meeting to me: `I was horrified hearing people slagging poor Harvey because of something in some ragbag Sunday paper.' But other Tories, including Mr Frank Tomlin, the consti- tuency chairman, thought Mr Proctor owed his constituents an explanation. De- scribing the Thurrock contingent at the meeting, a Billericay Conservative who had reluctantly turned against Mr Proctor says: 'We'd never seen any of these people before.' They belonged to relatively inac- tive branches outside Billericay.

One of Mr Proctor's supporters, Mrs Jill Schneider, proposed a motion of confi- dence. It was passed by about 23 votes to seven, with about three abstentions. Mr Tomlin, the vice-chairman and the treasur- er resigned. Mr Tomlin's wife had already resigned as agent. She was replaced by Mrs Schneider. Only Billericay West branch was solidly against Mr Proctor. Mr Ron Turner of Billericay East became the new chairman. He is an ex-policeman who rests his support for Mr Proctor on the honour- able principle: 'Harvey is innocent until proved guilty.' He accepts Mr Proctor's dubious argument that to sue for libel would be too expensive. Mr Proctor's position is paradoxical. Those who most abhor his racial attitudes are among those least likely to think that a man's private sexual behaviour has any bearing on his suitability for office: those who support him most vehemently about race are among those most likely to be intolerant of alleged homosexuals, at least when they are not homosexual themselves. Many who would like Mr Proctor to resign are nevertheless glad to see that a resolute MP can hold out against the Conservative Party hierarchy, few if any of whom have visited his constituency in recent years. Some of his bitterest enemies in Billericay join with his friends in declaring that he has been an outstandingly good constituency MP. And some who loathe his racism concede that in a democracy where a substantial number of people think such things, it is only democratic that they should be expressed. If freedom of ex- pression exists, it includes the freedom to say things upsetting to the liberal mind, or even to the race relations industry.

On 28 March, Billericay Conservative Association holds its annual general meet- ing. Another attack on Mr Proctor will be mounted. Some of the less fervent of his supporters may then waver. One thing they find hard to bear is the discovery that their MP has become a figure of fun to people who do not take politics as seriously as they do. On leaving Billericay, I again fell into conversation with some people at the station. 'Do the Constituency Association support Mr Proctor?' they asked. 'Oh yes, they're right behind him,' I said earnestly, but the reply provoked shouts of laughter. If Mr Proctor survives other pitfalls, he must yet fear ridicule.