Richard Moore
Liberal who campaigned to join and remain in the EEC and was right-hand man to Jeremy Thorpe
RICHARD MOORE, who has died aged 88, was a gifted, internationalist Liberal who was one of the earliest and most consistent campaigners for Britain to join – and then stay in – the European Community. He was also important in helping his party hold to the centre ground during the Cold War, eloquently advocating the nuclear deterrent against Soviet communism.
Throughout his life, Moore was a passionate champion of liberal values across Europe, particularly helping nascent parties emerging from Fascism and Communism. An old friend, the Conservative former Cabinet minister, Sir Oliver Letwin, said of him: “Somehow, the whole tolerant, civilised, liberal disposition that is the greatest glory of our country seemed to have been distilled into its purest form and infused into him at birth.”
Descended through his father from a long line of Liberal MPS, Moore joined the party in 1951 and was an active Liberal Democrat to the end. He attended every Liberal Assembly from 1953 until 2017, a record. The high point of his influence inside the party was as political secretary to Jeremy Thorpe from 1967 to 1973.
When the clouds of scandal later gathered over the Liberal leader, breaking in 1976, Moore was one of the last to remain convinced of his innocence. The most he would ever say against Thorpe was that “he was not very wise in his choice of friends.”
Richard Gillachrist Moore was born on February 20 1931, the younger son of Sir Alan Moore, 2nd Bt, and his wife Mary (née Burrows). When his parents took Jewish refugees from Hitler into their house in Sussex in the late 1930s, he developed a lifelong hatred of totalitarianism and an equally strong sympathy and admiration for the Jewish people.
From Eric Farmer’s private tutorial establishment in Cheveley, Moore won an exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge, to read History. He did National Service with the Royal Artillery. Much of it was spent lying in an Army hospital bed with a heart condition. In fact, however, the doctors had muddled him up with
another patient, and there was nothing wrong with him. He went to Cambridge in 1951, becoming president of the Union (beating the future Labour MP, Tam Dalyell, and the future broadcaster, Brian Redhead) and chairing the Liberal Club.
Graduating in 1955, Moore fought his first seat – Tavistock – at the age of 24. That election was the Liberals’ low point – just six seats won – and cast a real doubt over their future. Moore would stand seven more times for Parliament and twice for the European Parliament. He was always ready to take candidacies in unwinnable seats: the important thing was to spread the Liberal cause everywhere.
The next year, he joined the News Chronicle as a leader writer. Soon after, Jo Grimond became party leader, and a gradual Liberal revival began. Moore was elected to the party executive in June 1959, and that October fought Tavistock a second time. His energetic campaigning – calling for Dartmoor Prison to be demolished before it fell down – pushed Labour into third place as Thorpe captured neighbouring North Devon.
In March 1961 he took on the future Conservative Foreign Secretary Francis Pym in a by-election for Cambridgeshire, campaigning for early entry to the Common Market.
The 1961 Liberal Assembly voted for de facto recognition of the communist government of East Germany despite Moore telling delegates they were undermining the rights of oppressed peoples. A delegation of West German Free Democrats – the Liberals’ sister party – walked out. Moore travelled to Bonn to heal the rift.
Becoming general secretary of the Liberal International that year, Moore crafted a policy statement, “Winning the Cold War”, countering the neutralism of some of Europe’s Liberal parties. Asserting that the ability to attack would always be the best form of defence, it proposed an equal period of conscription throughout all Nato countries.
Though he had taken over the family home at Whatlington, near Battle in East Sussex, Moore stood in the 1966 election at North Antrim. He had noticed earlier than others how dangerous the sectarian situation was becoming. He stood there for a second time in 1970, to counter Ian Paisley in his first Westminster campaign. His attacks on DUP bigotry caused some of Paisley’s supporters to try to run his car off the road but did not prevent Paisley winning.
Thorpe’s election as leader in 1967 led to Moore joining him as his political secretary and speech writer. The Young Liberals were furious when Thorpe, in a speech drafted by Moore, denounced them as “Marxists”.
He also bolstered Thorpe’s opposition to strict immigration control. In the February 1974 general election, shortly after Moore had left his job with Thorpe, the Liberal vote almost tripled to more than six million.
In the mid-1970s, Moore’s interests turned even more to Europe. He played an active part at the centre of the successful Yes campaign in the 1975 referendum on staying in the EEC. In 1979 he became the main political adviser to the international Liberal Group at the European Parliament. There he worked closely with its leaders, including Simone Veil and Valéry Giscard d’estaing.
He led the group’s work in helping countries from the Communist bloc to start up democratic parties at the end of the Cold War, and was instrumental in founding the Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for outstanding human rights activities in unfree countries. In 1990 he successfully pushed the candidacy of Aung San Suu Kyi, at that time under house arrest in Burma.
After retiring in 1995, Moore was also president of his local party for many years, and in 2017 the Lib Dems recognised his contribution with the Harriet Smith award for outstanding commitment and service.
He was learned in many branches of history and was for many years chairman of the Battle Historical Society. He loved racing and wine, and enjoyed both together. He could recite the entire list of Derby winners, name and year.
Not long before his final illness, Moore was out on the streets of Battle arguing with passers-by for Britain’s continued full-hearted participation in the EU. Though perpetually short of money, he was always generous both to causes and individuals, in particular his seven grandchildren and other members of his extended family, of whom he was extremely fond.
One of his eccentricities was to pay all such gifts in guineas. On his deathbed, he was busy making benefactions to charities close to his heart.
Richard Moore’s wife Ann (née Miles) became a Liberal county councillor. She survives him, with their children, Charles, Charlotte and Rowan, all of whom are writers. Charles Moore also began as a Liberal; he later became the editor of The Daily Telegraph and authorised biographer of Margaret Thatcher.
Richard Moore, born February 20 1931, died May 15 2019