Sir Richard Body
Maverick Conservative MP and fervent Eurosceptic who was also a pig farmer, barrister and Quaker
SIR RICHARD BODY, who has died aged 90, was among the most individualistic of the knights of the shires who formed the backbone of the Tory party at Westminster; a backbencher for 41 years, he was above all a dedicated anti-marketeer. One of the few Conservatives to vote consistently against Edward Heath’s application for membership of the European Community, he co-chaired the Get Britain Out campaign in the 1975 referendum and two decades later resigned the whip in protest at John Major’s stance on Europe. Body’s independence was respected on all sides; indeed many felt he would have made an excellent Speaker had his hearing and eyesight not declined.
The blindness that afflicted him latterly was partly caused by an attack in Hyde Park in 1968. He was walking from the Commons late to catch a train home to Berkshire from Paddington, when youths set upon him and stole £9 10s, a gold pencil and pocket watch.
A pig (and later cattle) farmer, a barrister and a “name” at Lloyd’s (losing about £50,000 in the meltdown of 1988), Body – Europe apart – could take or leave politics. Indeed he gave up his original seat in 1959 because the demands of the House interfered with his practice at the Bar.
Body was kindly if gruff and slightly fraying round the edges, and even his most extreme views were moderately put. His combative reputation stemmed largely from his ownership of a pack of bloodhounds, which tracked people (usually family members), not animals. Despite his passion for country sports, particularly trout fishing, he repeatedly promoted legislation to curb cruelty to animals.
He was game for anything, accepting a challenge from constituents to sleep in a hotel plagued by noise from heavy lorries and sitting his English O-level at age 50 to test criticisms that standards had fallen; awarded a C, he concluded that they had not. He also had a house that had been built by his grandfather and which was threatened by a road scheme dismantled brick by brick and rebuilt two miles away.
Though he was firmly on the Right, Body’s views were seldom predictable: he believed that prison was becoming too soft, yet opposed the death penalty; cynics noted a personal interest because a 17th-century forebear had been hanged for rebellion. He advocated more liberal Official Secrets legislation than ministers would accept, and in the 1980s campaigned for an East-west nuclear freeze.
Body was one of the few Quakers in the House. He nevertheless believed that the Church of England had standards to maintain; vicars in his Fenland constituency would confide their “doubts” to him – only to be told to get a grip.
While he never moved to south-east Lincolnshire, no one could have represented its small farmers with greater concern. Regarding agro-business as harmful and over-subsidised, he formed a Small Farms’ Association and campaigned for controls on pesticides and the activities of gangmasters.
Later he considered the BSE affair a vindication of his warnings on the integrity of animal feed. While Body’s books on agriculture reached a limited audience, he was Private Eye’s original “Old Muckspreader”, whose column catalogued the lunacies of the Common Agricultural Policy and Maff ’s slavish adherence to it.
Richard Bernard Frank Stewart Body was born on May 18 1927, the son of Lt-col Bernard Body, a Berkshire farmer, and the former Daphne Corbett, and educated at Reading School. He joined the RAF near the end of the war, serving in India, and after his discharge read for the Bar at the Middle Temple, being called in 1949.
He took a pitch at Speakers’ Corner at 15, founded one of the first Young Conservative branches, and fought his first election, for the London County Council, at 21. By his 24th birthday he had contested three parliamentary seats: Rotherham in 1950, Abertillery in a by-election and Leek in 1951, coming within 2,000 votes of victory.
In 1955, at only 28, Body was elected for Billericay with a majority of 4,206. He aligned himself after Suez with Tory hardliners who stood by Anthony Eden’s commitment to deny President Nasser control of the canal, despite America’s refusal of support.
Standing down in 1959, Body devoted himself increasingly to farming and less to the Bar, but in 1966 he returned to Westminster for Holland with Boston, essentially the seat that he would represent into the next century. His majority over Labour was only 316, but four years later he boosted it to 9,339.
Body chaired a Select Committee investigating the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, which had defaulted on bonds worth £6 million. Its report recommended that 50 civic and maritime figures be barred from any further involvement.
When Heath took Britain into the Common Market, Body with Enoch Powell went into the “No” lobby on every possible occasion, once reducing the Government’s majority to eight; he was given a hard time by his constituency executive for his pains.
An early member of the Monday Club, Body was a founder-member with Powell, Nicholas Ridley and Jock Bruce-gardyne of the Selsdon Group, which sought to hold Heath to his original free-market policies and formed a basis for Thatcherism. Anxious to maintain the Commonwealth as a trading entity, Body founded and for two decades chaired the Open Seas Forum.
After the first 1974 election forced Heath from office, Body refused to support his drive to replace Harold Wilson’s minority Labour administration with a Heath-led government of national unity. With a second defeat looming, he floated Sir Keith Joseph as leader, but was happy with the party’s eventual choice of Margaret Thatcher.
One of the first MPS to advocate a referendum on Europe, Body campaigned hard before the 1975 poll, co-chairing Get Britain Out with the trade unionist Jack Jones. With the campaign under way, Powell and Peter Shore took the limelight. Body was, poignantly, prevented from delivering a “No” speech at Evesham by the local MP Michael Spicer, who 20 years later would rebel with him against Major.
Despite their agreeing on many issues, there was little chance of Mrs Thatcher giving Body a job when the Conservatives returned to power in 1979. He kept up his campaigning over Europe and joined the Agriculture Select Committee, where his knowledge proved invaluable. He chaired it in 1986, the year he was knighted.
Shortly after Major concluded the Maastricht treaty, which Body “viciously” opposed, he was tickled to receive a European award for his campaigning against pesticides and despoliation of the rainforests. He kept Conservative Central Office on its toes by hinting that he might retire, precipitating a potentially disastrous by-election. Major observed of Body: “I can hear the sound of white coats flapping.”
Body was canvassed as a “stalking-horse” candidate for the leadership, but in 1994 pre-empted such talk by resigning the whip to join the eight Eurosceptics expelled from the party for repeatedly voting against the government. After more than a year of vigorous dissent, he was the last rebel to return to the fold.
In 1997 Body was elected for the new constituency of Boston and Skegness, but with his majority reduced from five figures to 647. He retired in 2001 and in 2009 joined Ukip.
Body was president of, among other groups, the William Cobbett Society and the Ruskin Society.
He married Marion Graham in 1959. She survives him with a son, Richard, and a daughter, Jane.
Sir Richard Body, born May 18 1927, died February 26 2018