Jill Knight - Irish Interests

Irish Interests

Knight was for over 20 years an active member of the Conservative Monday Club and was an outspoken opponent of the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA).

Following the February 1972 Aldershot Bombing by the OIRA she called for legislation to outlaw the IRA, and attacked supporters and sympathisers on the mainland. In September 1973 she repeated her call for the banning of the IRA which, she said, was "at open war with Britain", and in December she stated that "it is the first duty of any government to protect its citizens". In June 1974 Knight protested at the "arrogant IRA march" which had been held in London. She said it was: "an outrage and insult to the British people". In this she was supported by other Monday Club MPs John Biggs-Davison, who made representations under the Public Order Act to the Home Secretary, and John Stokes. Also in June she herself made a formal complaint to the Home Secretary about the "Terrorist International Rally" that had been held in Northern Ireland. She said it was: "highly offensive for international terrorists to meet in Britain and plot against us". (The IRA was banned in 1977.)

In August 1974 she tabled a Question in the House of Commons asking the Secretary of State for Social Services to review payments to foreign visitors, stating that "anyone from Ireland or elsewhere must be made to understand that we have not the money to fund them". In October Sir Keith Joseph, speaking in Knight's constituency, expressed admiration for her as "a brave woman who speaks up when others prefer discretion in public and speak their minds only in private." She responded "I believe my constituents sent me to Parliament to speak up, not shut up."

In November 1974 she called for the death penalty to be made available for IRA and all terrorists, moved an amendment to that effect in the House of Commons, and asked the then Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, to step up activities against the IRA. Knight said that she had received more than 8,000 letters demanding capital punishment for terrorist killings and only 115 against it. John Biggs-Davison and Knight protested in parliament when the government decided to pay £42,000 in compensation to the relatives of men who were shot by the British Army on Bloody Sunday in 1972. She added that "these payments would seem to open up a completely new level of culpability. What compensation will the relatives of the victims of IRA killers in Birmingham get?".