Norris McWhirter

Ross and Norris McWhirter on Record Breakers.

Norris Dewar McWhirter (12 August 1925 – 20 April 2004) was a far right activist who with his twin brother Ross campaigned against movements for peace and disarmament, workers' rights and racial equality.

Biography

Family background and education

McWhirter was born in Winchmore Hill, north London, in 1925, the elder twin son of William Allan McWhirter. His father was an aide of the press baron Lord Rothermere and briefly edited the Daily Mail before becoming Managing Director of the Daily Mail’s parent company Associated Newspapers and the local newspaper company Northcliffe Newspapers. This was during the period that the Daily Mail advocated an alliance with Nazi Germany and published its notorious headline, ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts,’ in support of the British Union of Fascists.

Norris McWhirter was educated at Marlborough College, as was his twin brother Ross. Both then served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War and attended Trinity College, Oxford, where Norris read Economics and International Relations. In 1951 McWhirter began 16 years as athletics correspondent of The Observer, also working for The Star until 1960 where he was rugby and tennis correspondent. He was also a BBC television athletics commentator and covered the Olympics.

Although his brother Ross is said to have been the more political of the two, both the McWhirter twins were energetic reactionaries. Over Easter 1958, they drove to Aldermaston to meet the anti-nuclear protestors on their annual march. From the roof of their Mercedes, a megaphone told the marchers: ‘Each one of you is increasing the risk of nuclear war. You are playing Khruschev's game. Moscow is making use of you.’ Norris stood as a Tory MP, unsuccessfully contesting the Orpington seat in the 1964 general election, following its loss to the Liberals in a by-election two years earlier, and again in 1966.

Andy Beckett writes that, ‘In the late sixties, the brothers fought against the introduction of comprehensive education to the prosperous north London suburb of Enfield and formed a lasting alliance with a notable local right-winger, Ralph Harris of the Institute of Economic Affairs.

Whilst Ross McWhirter was more active in politics, Norris was more involved in business. He was managing director and chairman of Wm McWhirter & Sons (in 1954-76 and 1956-86 respectively) and was chairman of Redwood Press from 1966 to 1972. He was also a director of Guinness Publications (formerly Guinness Superlatives) from 1954 to 1996.

The National Association For Freedom (NAFF)

In 1975 Ross McWhirter founded a publishing company called Current Affairs Press and a news-sheet, Majority which was dedicated to grass roots anti-union activism. According to Andy Beckett’s account, Current Affairs Press, which was renamed Self Help, formed the basis of the National Association for Freedom (NAFF) which was launched in December that year.

In 2003, Norris McWhirter, recalled (writing in the third person) how NAFF had originated from a chance meeting with Viscount De L'Isle on a plane from London to New York earlier that year:

The two had a detailed discussion about the seriousness of Britain’s decline since the death of Winston Churchill. Lord de L’Isle had just received a letter from Michael Ivens [the director of the anti-union pressure group Aims of Industry], asking him to consider leading a new association pledged to support individual freedom and to resist ever Bigger Government. As a result of the long flight, Ross and Norris McWhirter were invited to Lord de L’Isle’s home at Penshurst Place in Kent for a further discussion. It was on the hottest day of the year, Thursday 12 June 1975. At a light lunch on a small round table that Lord de L’Isle had acquired at an auction at Chartwell, home of Sir Winston Churchill, plans were hatched to convene a meeting of fifty prominent people from politics, business, the armed services, the church and the professions at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on Thursday 31 July.

These were the original council members of what was then called the National Association for Freedom. They included figures as varied as Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, the constitutional expert Lord Blake and the cricketer Alec Bedser.

Having offered a £50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of IRA members, Ross McWhirter was murdered shortly before the planned launched of NAFF, which took place on 2 December 1975. Following his brother’s death Norris McWhirter stepped into his shoes as a political operator and attended the launch under protection by armed police. The launch was attended by Margaret Thatcher.

McWhirter was Chairman of the Freedom Association from 1983 to 2000 and President from 2001 to 2004.

Ross McWhirter Foundation

Just days after the launch of NAFF Margaret Thatcher was one of eleven signatories of a letter to The Times appealing for donations to the Ross McWhirter Foundation. The letter read:

From Lord Boyd of Merton, OH, and others

Sir, In Ross McWhirter's cruelly untimely death so many mourn a cherished friend and all concerned for personal freedom have lost an inspiring champion. While men and women in our land, whatever their beliefs, cannot speak their mind without fear of intimidation, let alone terrorists' guns, freedom is imperilled in the country which cradled it in the modern world.

A man of such fiercely-held and uncompromising convictions was bound to provoke disagreement in some quarters as well as strong approval in others. But we are appealing for support on a wholly non-political basis for the Ross McWhirter Foundation which will seek ways of encouraging outstanding personal initiative, leadership, courage and example in any aspect of human action.

The Foundation is being sponsored as an enduring memorial by a number of his friends drawn from some of the many activities he adorned with rare distinction.

We aim to devise imaginative forms of awards that will commemorate the qualities displayed to a unique degree in Ross McWhirter's life, and not least his unwavering personal dedication to independent action in maintaining, advancing and expounding the highest ideals of individual freedom within the law.

We invite donations to be sent to Lord Boyd at the House of Lords. Cheques, large and small, should be made payable to the Ross McWhirter Foundation. Yours faithfully, Boyd, Odette Hallowes, Rhodes Boyson, George Styles, Basil Place, Margaret Thatcher, Michael Hooker, Anthony Berry, Ralph Harris, Norris McWhirter, As from: House of Lords. December 4.

McWhirter was Chairman of the Foundation from 1994 till 2004.

Campaigns and causes

McWhirter awarded medals to athletes who boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and defended sportsmen who went to South Africa during apartheid. In 1989 he sought an injunction in the High Court preventing the International Cricket Conference - the game's disciplinary body - from imposing a four-year ban on players visiting the country.

In the late 1990s McWhirter and his old friend Ralph Harris led a network of right-wingers raising money to support for Neil Hamilton, who accused of having received money from the Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed in return for asking questions on his behalf in the House of Commons. They reportedly raised £410,000 for the fund; £50,000 from the right-wing socialite and columnist Taki Theodoracopulos, and the Earl of Portsmouth said he had made a 'substantial donation'.