Neil Hamilton (politician)

Mostyn Neil Hamilton (born 9 March 1949) is a British former barrister and politician who has been leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) since 2020. He was the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Tatton from 1983 to 1997 and a UKIP Member of the Senedd (MS) for Mid and West Wales from 2016 to 2021.

Hamilton was elected to the House of Commons in the 1983 general election. He was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Corporate Affairs by Prime Minister John Major in 1992.

In 1994, ''The Guardian'' alleged that Hamilton had taken cash payments in exchange for asking questions in Parliament. Hamilton sued ''The Guardian'' for libel, but settled on the day of the trial. ''The Guardian'' published a headline branding him "A Liar and a Cheat". The cash-for-questions affair enquiry in 1997 found that Hamilton had taken bribes. He subsequently lost a libel case on the matter. Hamilton became widely associated with sleaze, and was forced to resign his ministerial role. He was defeated by an independent candidate, Martin Bell, in the 1997 general election.

He left the Conservative Party in 2002, and joined UKIP. In 2011, he returned to politics and was elected to the National Executive Committee of UKIP in 2011. Following his election to the National Assembly for Wales, he was UKIP Assembly Group Leader from 2016 to 2018 and again from 2019 to 2021. He became leader of UKIP Wales in 2016. In September 2020, Hamilton was named acting leader of UKIP, following the suspension from the party of the previous leader, Freddy Vachha. Hamilton was defeated at the 2021 Senedd election. In October 2021, Hamilton was elected UKIP leader.

Due to his television appearances, ''The Guardian'' described him as "an all-purpose Z-list celebrity".

Early life

Hamilton was born in Fleur-de-Lis, a Gwent pit village near Blackwood, Wales. In 1960 he moved to Ammanford. His father was a chief engineer for the National Coal Board. His grandfathers were coal miners. He grew up in Ammanford in Carmarthenshire and joined the Conservative Party in 1964, at the age of 15.

Education

Hamilton attended Amman Valley Grammar School in Ammanford. He received a BScEcon degree in economics and politics from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1970, and an MScEcon degree in economics and politics in 1975. While at Aberystwyth, he was active in the Federation of Conservative Students; he was a member between 1968 and 1974. In 1973, as a representative of the Federation of Conservative Students, Hamilton attended a conference of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI). Hamilton went on to study at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he attained a postgraduate law degree.‘HAMILTON, (Mostyn) Neil’
''Who's Who 2016'', A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2016; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2015; online edn, November 2015. Accessed 10 May 2016.

Student activity and early political career

At the 1970 Conservative Party conference, Hamilton called for mass privatisation. The following year, he opposed the plan for Britain to join the European Communities. In 1972, after several years' membership, Hamilton was elected to the executive council of the Conservative Monday Club. He left the Club in 1973, and stood as chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students against David Davis, but lost. In the early 1970s, Hamilton was the founder of the Eldon League, a right-wing social organisation given to having picnics and dinners 'and having a good time'. He appointed himself its "Grand Imperial Prior" and called for the abolition of the internal combustion engine and plastic. Hamilton stood as the Conservative parliamentary candidate in the February 1974 general election in Abertillery and in the 1979 general election in Bradford North, but failed on both occasions.

Teaching

Hamilton was a teacher at St John's College in Southsea between 1973 and 1976. In his spare time he studied for his bar practice exam. He also taught constitutional law at Hatfield Polytechnic between September 1978 and July 1982.

Legal career

From September 1979, Hamilton practised as a barrister. He specialised in taxation, trust and property law. However, after he lost his parliamentary seat in 1997, he vowed never to return to "that constipated profession". In April 2001, Hamilton said, "If I am bankrupt hich he was the following month I won't be able to return to the bar but even if I was able to do so, I couldn't contain myself from saying what I thought to some of the judges." Hamilton was also European and Parliamentary Affairs Director of the Institute of Directors during this time.David Leigh & Ed Vulliamy, ''Sleaze, the Corruption of Parliament'', pages 48/49,

Political career

Parliamentary career

On 12 March 1983, Hamilton was selected as the Conservative candidate for the newly created Tatton constituency. Three months later, at the 1983 general election Hamilton was elected to Parliament as MP for Tatton. On entering the Commons, Hamilton was appointed as an officer of the backbench committee on Trade and Industry under the chairmanship of Michael Grylls.

Leaded petrol

In 1984, against party policy, Hamilton opposed the abandonment of leaded petrol in Britain. He argued there was no evidence that leaded petrol was damaging the environment, or health, and that jobs would be lost in his constituency if leaded petrol was banned.

Western Goals Institute

Hamilton resumed his activities as a supporter of pressure groups, including the Western Goals Institute, led by ex-Young Monday Club Chairman, Andrew V. R. Smith and attracting the support of other parliamentarians such as Sir Patrick Wall, Bill Walker, Nicholas Winterton and the Revd. Martin Smyth. He was on their parliamentary advisory board.''Labour Research'', November 1988, p. 2. The Western Goals Institute achieved notoriety by inviting Jean-Marie Le Pen (leader of the French National Front) and Alessandra Mussolini (Benito Mussolini's granddaughter, a Deputy sitting for the Italian neo-fascist MSI) to address fringe meetings at the 1992 Conservative Party conference. The Party Chairman Sir Norman Fowler was outraged, and said the Conservative Party was not related to the Western Goals Institute. In the event the meetings were cancelled, as neither Le Pen nor Mussolini could come to Britain.

Hamilton also lent his support to the No Turning Back Group organised by his friend Michael Brown MP. Other MPs active in the No Turning Back Group included Michael Portillo, Peter Lilley, Alan Duncan and Gerald Howarth.David Leigh & Ed Vulliamy, ''Sleaze, the Corruption of Parliament'', page 76,

Ian Greer Associates

In 1985, he began working for Ian Greer Associates, lobbying on behalf of US Tobacco. Hamilton, together with Michael Brown, became an enthusiastic supporter of US Tobacco's product Skoal Bandits, a tea-bag type of pouch of tobacco designed for chewing. The product was believed to cause serious risk of oral cancer, particularly for minors, and the government was inclined to ban its import. Hamilton said he supported the introduction of Skoal Bandits on libertarian grounds, and lobbied ministers (including Edwina Currie and David Mellor) to allow its introduction. The House of Commons Select Committee on Standards investigation stated: "Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Brown had a number of contacts with Ministers and officials as part of their campaign to influence Government policy on Skoal Bandits" and said that there was "no evidence ... that any appropriate declaration was made". Hamilton was obliged to concede he had been wrong to make no reference to the payment "when I went on those meetings with Ministers".

Strategy Network International

In June 1990, Hamilton was recruited by the right-wing Monday Club activist Derek Laud to work for Strategy Network International, a firm specifically created to lobby against anti-apartheid movements and economic sanctions and for apartheid South Africa's 'transitional government' of Namibia set up in defiance of UN Resolution 435 on Namibian independence. Derek Laud was an ex-Monday Club activist and protégé of Hamilton's friend Michael Brown, who offered Hamilton a fee of £8,000 per year. Hamilton failed to register the paid-for consultancy. Hamilton took free trips to South Africa in the company of Brown.

Thatcher leadership contest

Thatcher appointed Hamilton a whip in July 1990. In November 1990, Michael Heseltine initiated a leadership challenge to Margaret Thatcher. Hamilton was told by the Chief Whip to stay neutral, but says he ignored this instruction. "I naturally ignored this advice and fed all my intelligence into her campaign." He also said that he made the fateful suggestion that she interview each cabinet member individually, believing they would lack the resolve to tell her to her face that she must go. "Unfortunately, I had miscalculated." Hamilton strongly encouraged Thatcher to persist. At a meeting where Peter Lilley argued that Thatcher could not survive, Hamilton subjected him to a barrage of "sarcasm and heckling".Bruce Anderson, ''John Major – Making of the Prime Minister'' (1991). On 21 November 1990, Hamilton and like-minded colleagues met Thatcher at Downing Street. Thatcher did subsequently resign, and in the next round of the election Hamilton voted for John Major.

Minister in Major Government

From 1992 to 1994, Hamilton was the Minister for Deregulation and Corporate Affairs in John Major's government. He came under pressure to step down after the resignation of another minister, Tim Smith, on 19 October 1994, after Smith had admitted to taking money in the cash-for-questions affair. Facing the same allegations, Hamilton denied them and issued proceedings for libel, but he resigned on 26 October at the insistence of John Major.

Approach to the Maastricht Treaty

Denmark rejected the Maastricht Treaty on 2 June 1992. Like some other Conservative ministers, Hamilton had also opposed the treaty and was a member of the Eurosceptic "No Turning Back" group. Despite this, Hamilton remained, for a time, loyal to the Major government which endorsed the treaty. Hamilton urged his colleagues not to resign over the Treaty and other issues.

No longer a minister at the time of the 1995 Conservative Party leadership election, Hamilton did not support Major. Initially a supporter of Michael Portillo, when Portillo did not contest the leadership Hamilton voted instead for John Redwood. Hamilton also sent condolences to Portillo in 2001, when he failed to win that year's leadership election.

Loss of Tatton

Prior to the 1997 general election, Hamilton determined to try to retain his parliamentary seat. His majority at the 1992 general election had been almost 16,000 votes. In 1997, Tatton was the fourth safest Conservative seat in Britain. Hamilton was under investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner as part of the ''cash for questions'' enquiry and some party members thought he should stand down after the collapse of his case against ''The Guardian''. Disquiet in the local association became public, but the majority gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Hamilton resisted the pressure from senior Conservatives and Conservative Central Office to stand down. Jeremy Paxman states that Conservative Central Office "begged him not to stand, but in a gesture of overweening arrogance, he refused to go quietly."
On 8 April 1997, Hamilton was chosen as the Conservative candidate for Tatton (182 for, 35 against, 100 abstained). ''The Observer'' commissioned ICM polls in the constituencies of the three Conservative candidates tainted by scandal and seeking re-election: Hamilton, Allan Stewart and Piers Merchant. Both Stewart and Merchant were found to have support consistent with their party's standing, but in Tatton "there was massive hostility to Hamilton".

When Martin Bell, the BBC war correspondent, announced he would stand as an independent candidate in Tatton, the Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates for the area stood down in order to give Bell a clear run against Hamilton. Bell defeated Hamilton, winning by a majority of over 11,000 votes with a swing of 48%. Although Hamilton vowed to return to parliament, this defeat marked the end of his political career in the Conservative Party. In March 1999, George Osborne was selected by the Tatton Conservative Association to be their candidate for the following general election.

William Hague's leadership

Following Hamilton's ejection from Tatton and the Conservative defeat in the 1997 election, the new party leader, William Hague, sought to distance the Conservative Party from the disgraced Hamilton and asked Hamilton to stay away from the party conference.

UK Independence Party

In September 2011, Hamilton attended the annual conference of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). The party's leader Nigel Farage pledged to support him in the election for the National Executive Committee. Hamilton was elected to the committee on 1 November 2011. He later become deputy chairman of the party. Hamilton was demoted from his role as campaign director in April 2014. In the May 2014 local elections, he stood as a UKIP candidate in the St Mary's Park ward of Wandsworth London Borough Council and finished 8th of the 9 candidates with 396 votes.

In the elections for the National Assembly for Wales on 5 May 2016, he was elected as a Member of the National Assembly for Wales for the Mid and West Wales Region, one of seven UKIP candidates to win a seat through the Regional List system. On 10 May 2016, UKIP's AMs voted him their leader in the Welsh Assembly, defeating Nathan Gill. The UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, criticised the move as an "unjust act of deep ingratitude". Hamilton dismissed Farage's criticism as "irrelevant", accused him of "throwing toys out of pram" and referred to him as "the MEP for the South East of England". In leaked emails, he was accused by UKIP's biggest donor, Arron Banks, of being a "corrupt old Tory". Nathan Gill subsequently left the UKIP group in the assembly to sit as an independent, resulting in Neil Hamilton becoming UKIP's Leader in Wales in September 2016. Hamilton was ousted as leader of UKIP in the National Assembly on 17 May 2018 and was replaced by Caroline Jones.

In August 2018, UKIP leader Gerard Batten MEP announced that there would be a membership ballot for the leadership of UKIP in Wales. The eventual winner would become the UKIP Assembly Group Leader and ultimately the party's main spokesperson for Wales. Hamilton, Jones and another UKIP Assembly Member in Wales, Gareth Bennett, stood in the election, which was won by Bennett. Hamilton said he could "happily" work with Mr Bennett, but Jones said she had "a lot of thinking to do". Batten said he expected his Welsh Assembly members to now "work together for UKIP's cause and get on with the job."

Following his maiden speech in the Welsh Assembly, he was accused of making sexist remarks towards female politicians after referring to Kirsty Williams and Leanne Wood as "concubines" in a "harem".

Hamilton caused further controversy during a debate on the effects of Brexit in Wales. When Eluned Morgan claimed that the economic consequences of Brexit would be hardest for those who could least afford it, Hamilton remarked that "suicide's an option". He was instructed by the presiding officer to apologise for the remark. Hamilton initially refused, saying, "What is there to apologise for?" and "What was unparliamentary about the remark?" He did eventually apologise, saying, "I apologise for whatever remark I am supposed to have made."

In April 2018, Hamilton said that "the idea that Enoch Powell was some kind of uniquely racist villain is absolute nonsense". Commenting on Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech about mass immigration, Hamilton said that Powell was wrong about predicting racial violence, but had been "proved right by events" in terms of social change that was "never desired by the majority of the British people". Hamilton said that Powell "changed politics by articulating the fears and resentments of millions and millions of people who are being ignored by the establishment". In response, the leader of Plaid Cymru, Leanne Wood, accused Hamilton of "keeping Powell's racist rhetoric going". Labour AM Hefin David described Hamilton's comments as "outrageous".

In April 2019, Hamilton was the UKIP candidate in the by-election for Newport West. He came third behind the Labour and Conservative candidates with 2,023 votes (8.6%).

Hamilton was the only MS not to live in Wales. By 2021 he was UKIP's only representative at any level above local government.

On 12 September 2020, he was appointed acting leader, replacing Freddy Vachha.

In the 2021 Senedd election Hamilton moved to the South Wales East region. He criticised BBC Wales for excluding UKIP from the main leaders' debates, with Hamilton instead being invited to a separate debate alongside Reform UK and the Wales Green Party. Hamilton contested the constituency of Islwyn but came sixth with just 507 votes. He was also top of the UKIP list for that region but was not appointed as an additional member either. Meanwhile the party lost all its other Senedd seats.

After a period as acting leader, Hamilton was elected as leader in October 2021, receiving 498 out of 631 votes cast (78.9%) against challenger John Poynton.

Legal cases

BBC libel case (1984–1986)

On 30 January 1984, a ''Panorama'' programme, "Maggie's Militant Tendency", was broadcast. The programme made a number of allegations regarding Hamilton's past and more recent activities. These included his attending and giving a fraternal speech in 1972 to the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) an Italian neo-fascist party led by one of Benito Mussolini's ex-ministers, Giorgio Almirante, Hamilton's membership of the Eldon League, and his involvement with the Powellite faction of the Monday Club and the far-right activist, George Kennedy Young, the former Deputy Director of MI6 and Chairman of the Society for Individual Freedom. The programme also made the claim that Hamilton gave a Nazi salute in Berlin while "messing around" on a parliamentary visit in August 1983. A Nazi salute is a criminal offence in the Federal Republic of Germany. In October 1986, Hamilton and his fellow MP Gerald Howarth (one of his closest friends), sued the BBC
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