Memorial Service: Sir Roger Moate; Lord Spicer James Hughes-onslow
Two Tory Brexiteers died last year, just before Boris Johnson came to power.
Roger Moate became MP for Faversham in Kent in June 1970, the election that put Edward Heath, who was determined that Britain should join the Common Market, into No 10. Moate languished on the back benches, always a champion of local issues, for 27 years.
‘Roger was a Eurosceptic before the term was coined,’ said former Tory leader Lord Howard of Lympne – who, as well as being a fellow Eurosceptic was an MP in Kent – in his eulogy at St Mary of Charity, Faversham. ‘He was one of the first to call for a referendum and it must have given him great pleasure to see its result in 2016. I overlapped with Roger in the House of Commons for 14 years before the boundary redistribution of 1997 led to the dismemberment of the constituency he’d loved and served so well.’
Sir Roger’s son, Andrew Moate, read an extract from Yes Minister in which Sir Humphrey says, ‘Britain has had the same foreign-policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. We have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and the Italians. Divide and rule, you see. We had to break up the whole EEC, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn’t work. Now that we’re inside, we can make a complete pig’s breakfast of the whole thing.’
Sir Roger’s daughter Sally Brunner
read from one of her father’s rhymes: ‘Henry was a cannibal/ His girl was Henrietta/ And was such a tasty dish/ That hungry Henry ate her.’
Daughter Sophie Proudfoot read If, by Rudyard Kipling.
The service for Lord Spicer, former chairman of the 1922 Committee, was held at St Margaret’s, Westminster. Daniel Hannan MEP led the tributes.
‘Michael led the Eurosceptic movement in this country from the beginning of the 1990s to the 2005 election. He founded the European Research Group in 1993. You didn’t know that? I’m not surprised: he was reluctant to take credit,’ said Hannan. ‘If you’ve ever wondered why the ERG has such a bland name, by the way, the answer tells us a great deal about Michael’s approach to politics.
‘When the group was about to launch, I kept bouncing putative titles at him – titles that struck me as suitably stirring, involving words such as “independence”, “democracy” and “freedom”.
‘Then, very patiently, Michael said, “Daniel, if you’re setting up a campaign to take over the world, you don’t call it the Campaign to Take Over the World. You call it something generic like the … European … Research Group!” ’