Andrew Robert Frederick Ebenezer Hunter (born 8 January 1943) is a British politician and a member of the Orange Order. He was

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

(MP) for Basingstoke from 1983 until 2005. From 1990 to 2001 he was Vice-Chairman of the

Conservative Monday Club The Conservative Monday Club (usually known as the Monday Club) is a British political pressure group, aligned with the Conservative Party, though no longer endorsed by it. It also has links to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Ulster Unioni ...

and was chairman as of 2008, succeeding Lord Sudeley.

Early life

Hunter is the son of

RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

Squadron Leader Squadron leader (Sqn Ldr in the RAF ; SQNLDR in the RAAF and RNZAF; formerly sometimes S/L in all services) is a commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence. It is als ...

Roger F Hunter by his marriage to Winifred M Nelson/Hunter. He attended St George's School, Harpenden and studied at the

University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charte ...

( St John's College), gaining a BA in Theology in 1966 and an MA in History in 1968. He gained a Diploma in Education from

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...

in 1967 then studied at

Westcott House, Cambridge Westcott House is an Anglican theological college based on Jesus Lane in the centre of the university city of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.Westcott House website, Home pag Retrieved on August 27, 2006. Its main activity is training people for ...

. Hunter worked as an Assistant Master at St Martin's School, Northwood from 1970–1971 and then joined Harrow School, where he taught until 1983.

Parliamentary career

Hunter contested

Southampton Itchen Southampton, Itchen is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by Royston Smith, a Conservative member of parliament. Discounting the Speaker (of the House of Commons) returned in the early 1970s in two ...

as a

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

in 1979, but lost to incumbent MP Bob Mitchell. Hunter was first elected to Basingstoke in the 1983 election. He is a member of the

and its Vice-Chairman from 1991 to 2001, when he was ordered by the Conservative Party to quit the Club. Since retiring as an MP he is once again Deputy-Chairman of the Club. Until 2002, he was a patron of the magazine '' Right Now!''. Hunter was active in thoroughly researching and exposing links of the

Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various paramilitary organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dedicated to irredentism through Irish republicanism, the belief th ...

(IRA) with other groups, including the South African

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...

(ANC), and in July 1988 called for

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

to deport all ANC members then resident in Britain. In 2002, he withdrew from the Conservative Party in order to contest elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly as a candidate of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). He had family and Orange Order connections with Northern Ireland and opposed the

Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in No ...

. He stood in

Lagan Valley The Lagan Valley (, Ulster Scots: ''Glen Lagan'') is an area of Northern Ireland between Belfast and Lisburn. The River Lagan rises on Slieve Croob in County Down and flows generally northward discharging into Belfast Lough. For a section, the ...

in the 2003 Northern Ireland election, but failed to gain a seat, coming seventh in a six-seat constituency. On 10 December 2004, he announced that he had joined the DUP Parliamentary Group in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

, the first mainland Member of Parliament in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

to represent a party based in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

since

T.P. O'Connor Thomas Power O'Connor (5 October 1848 – 18 November 1929), known as T. P. O'Connor and occasionally as Tay Pay (mimicking his own pronunciation of the initials ''T. P.''), was an Irish nationalist politician and journalist who served as a ...

, who represented Liverpool Scotland from 1885 to 1929 as an

Irish Nationalist Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of c ...

. In February 2005, Hunter raised the case of

Jeremy Bamber Jeremy Nevill Bamber (born Jeremy Paul Marsham; 13 January 1961) is a British convicted murderer. He was convicted of the 1985 White House Farm murders in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, in which the victims included Bamber's adoptive parents, Ne ...

in Parliament, questioning his conviction for murdering his adoptive family. Hunter stepped down from the House of Commons at the 2005 general election and suggested he would move to Northern Ireland to become more involved with DUP politics.

Personal life

He married Janet Bourne in 1972 in Harrow, and they have a son and a daughter. One of his recreations is collecting model soldiers. He is also a member of the

Carlton Club The Carlton Club is a private members' club in St James's, London. It was the original home of the Conservative Party before the creation of Conservative Central Office. Membership of the club is by nomination and election only. History The ...

References

Bibliography

* '' Right Now!'' magazine, (Various editions) * ''Young European'' newsletter, December 1988 edition, published by

Western Goals (UK) Western Goals may refer to: *The Western Goals Foundation, a private intelligence dissemination network active on the right-wing in the United States *The Western Goals Institute Western Goals Institute (WGI) was a far-right pressure group and ...

, London.

External links

Profile
TheyWorkForYou.com
"Joining the DUP in December 2004"
bbc.co.uk

Ask Aristotle @ guardian.co.uk {{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, Andrew Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Democratic Unionist Party MPs People from Harpenden UK MPs 1983–1987 UK MPs 1987–1992 UK MPs 1992–1997 UK MPs 1997–2001 UK MPs 2001–2005 1943 births Living people People educated at St George's School, Harpenden Alumni of Westcott House, Cambridge Alumni of St John's College, Durham British Eurosceptics