Harold Benjamin Soref was a Conservative Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom for Ormskirk, Lancashire, first elected at the 1970 general election.
27 Facts About Harold Soref
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Harold Soref subsequently lost the seat to Labour in February 1974.
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Harold Soref was the son of Paul Soref, a merchant shipper of Romanian Jewish origin, and his wife Zelma, who lived in Hampstead, north west London.
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Harold Soref was educated at Hall School, Hampstead, and St Paul's School, Hammersmith, before going up to Queen's College, Oxford.
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Harold Soref had an early interest in colonial affairs, and was an elected delegate, in 1937, to the first All-British Africa Conference at Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia, held with the intention of forming the Africa Defence Federation.
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Harold Soref was a founder member of the Conservative Commonwealth Council, and a member of the governing council of the Anglo-Rhodesian Society, and the Anglo-Zanzibar Society.
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Harold Soref was a member of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, and a standard bearer at the BUF's 1934 Olympia meeting.
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Harold Soref was elected as the Conservative MP for Ormskirk in 1970 but, as it was a marginal constituency, and following boundary changes, he lost it in 1974 to Labour's Robert Kilroy-Silk.
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Harold Soref was an early member of the Conservative Monday Club, a right-wing grouping in the party.
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Harold Soref served a term as its National Vice-Chairman, and was for some time a very active Chairman of their Africa and Rhodesia study groups and policy committees.
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Harold Soref was several times a member of the club's executive council, including from 1970 to 1975.
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In July 1972, Harold Soref had discussions, on behalf of the Monday Club, with the Home Office, on the 1,500 Trotskyists camping in Essex, which included groups from North America.
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Harold Soref condemned Idi Amin's decision to expel Ugandan Asians with British passports as "discriminatory racialism".
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Harold Soref was a leading speaker at the Monday Club's "Halt Immigration Now" rally in Westminster Central Hall the same year, when a resolution was passed calling on the government to halt all immigration, repeal the Race Relations Act, and start a full repatriation scheme.
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On 30 September 1972, the Daily Telegraph remarked that "Mr Harold Soref is nothing if not consistent", commenting that when an all-party delegation began a tour of Red China, he left defiantly for Taiwan.
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In October 1972, Harold Soref said that the Irish Republican Army were planning a direct assault in England, and that the IRA were receiving weapons from Libya, as well as detailing their contacts with other terrorist movements.
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In 1973, Harold Soref successfully fought the Home Office deportation order against New Zealander Peter Wildermoth, and his intercessions, in December 1973, secured the freedom of Gerald Hawksworth, who was imprisoned in Tanzania after being kidnapped by the Zimbabwe African National Union.
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Harold Soref subsequently gave a Monday Club dinner at Westminster Palace to celebrate Hawksworth's release.
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In 1974, Harold Soref was appointed as the Monday Club's vice-chairman, and spoke at Oxford University in May that year.
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Harold Soref had a police escort into the building, but gangs of left-wing students with masked faces howling "Death to Soref" forced their way into the hall; he was forced to escape violence down a back staircase and over a six-foot wall, with his pursuers close behind, jumping onto the back of his car as it drew away.
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Harold Soref had said that "the Secretary of State during his recent safari displayed his dedication to 'Black Power'".
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Harold Soref was an outspoken critic of the IRA, and issued a press statement on behalf of the Monday Club in November 1974 calling for capital punishment "for traitors and those engaged in civil war".
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The shooting had taken place at the time Harold Soref normally arrived home, but he had been delayed that night.
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Later, Harold Soref received an anonymous telephone call saying that the shots were meant for him.
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On 26 January 1981, Harold Soref presided at the Monday Club's Africa Group Dinner at St Stephen's Club, Westminster, when the MP Nicholas Winterton was the guest of honour.
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In 1947, Harold Soref founded Jewish Monthly magazine, which he edited until 1951.
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From 1959, Harold Soref was Managing Director of Harold Soref Brothers Limited, becoming Chairman in 1976, and remaining at the firm until 1988.