Peter Hain

Hain was educated in South Africa at Hatfield Primary School and Pretoria Boys High School and in London at Emanuel School, a state school, later becoming a private fee-paying institution, then Queen Mary College, University of London, graduating with a first class bachelor's degree in Economics and Political science in 1973,[6] and the University of Sussex, obtaining an MPhil.[7] After university, Hain worked as a researcher for the Union of Communication Workers from September 1976, later rising to become their head of research. During this time, Hain wrote several articles that harshly criticised Israel, including a 1976 piece in The Guardian newspaper where he stated that Israel needed to be dismantled to make way for a secular, democratic Palestinian state.

Having joined the British Anti-Apartheid Movement at aged 17 in 1967, when Hain was 19 he became chairman of the Stop The '70 Tour campaign which disrupted tours by the South African rugby union and cricket teams in 1969 and 1970. In 1971 director John Goldschmidt produced a film for Granada's World in Action programme featuring Hain debating "Apartheid in South Africa" at the Oxford Union. The film was transmitted on the ITV network. In 1972 a private prosecution resulted in his conviction for criminal conspiracy at the Old Bailey for which he was fined £200. The prosecution was funded largely from apartheid-supporting whites in South Africa due to his campaign against white-only South African sports tours. He was acquitted of three other conspiracy counts after defending himself in the four week trial described in the book edited by Derek Humphry, Cricket Conspiracy (1975, ISBN 0-901108-40-5).[1]

In 1972, the South African Security Services were suspected of sending him a letter bomb that failed to explode because of faulty wiring. In 1976 Hain was tried for, and acquitted of, a 1975 bank theft, having been framed by the South African Bureau of State Security (BOSS) according to his 1987 book, A Putney Plot.[8][9][10]

In 1968, he joined the Liberal Party and was elected chairperson in 1971 and then in 1975 president of the Young Liberals, but in 1977 switched to Labour. The same year, he was a founder of the Anti-Nazi League.[11]

In the 1970s, Hain was also Honorary Vice-president of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality when he clashed with lobbying interests from the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE).[12]

Following Labour's victory in the 1997 general election he joined the government, first at the Welsh Office 1997–1999, then as minister of state at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1999 to 2001 with responsibility for Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.[15]

In November 1999, as Africa minister he met Robert Mugabe in London; Mugabe told him "I know you are not one of them, Peter; you are one of us,"[16] But the following day, following an attempt by Gay Rights campaigner Peter Tatchell to carry out a citizen's arrest on Mugabe, Mugabe accused Hain of being Tatchell's "wife".[17] In October 2000 he set up a war avoidance team to carry messages back and forth between himself and the then-Minister of Foreign Affairs in Iraq, Tariq Aziz (a matter then confidential, which has since been put on public record in an interview with Hain by the Today programme). Team members who travelled repeatedly to Iraq on Hain's behalf included William Morris, Burhan Chalabi (an Iraqi-born British businessman), and Nasser al-Khalifa (the then-Qatari Ambassador to the UK). He voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, later calling it a "fringe issue" compared to other government priorities.[18] However he subsequently described the Iraq invasion as a 'disaster' and said 'I believed the evidence shown me on weapons of mass destruction later discovered to be entirely false.'[19]

Hain during his time in office

In 2001, Hain moved briefly to the Department of Trade and Industry[20] before returning to the Foreign Office as Minister for Europe,[15] being sworn into the Privy Council the same year.[21] He was vocal in advocating joint sovereignty of Gibraltar with Spain.[22]

In October 2002, he joined the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales, but continued to represent the UK at the Convention on the Future of Europe. In June 2003 he was made Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal in a cabinet reshuffle, but retained the Wales portfolio. In November 2004 he caused controversy among his political rivals when he claimed that "If we are tough on crime and on terrorism, as Labour is, then I think Britain will be safer under Labour".[23]

On 6 May 2005, following the 2005 general election, Hain was appointed as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland by Prime Minister Tony Blair, also retaining his Welsh position. He was responsible for negotiating the settlement which brought former enemies Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party into a power-sharing Northern Irish government from May 2007. Although previously a supporter of Irish unity, he has since retreated from this position. On 28 June 2007, he was appointed as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in addition to retaining responsibility for Wales. He was a proponent of the "tough love" measures designed to force claimants, including the sick and disabled, back to work. He saw it as an anti-poverty, full-employment agenda. He resigned from his post when the issue of donations made to his campaign funds were referred to the police.[24]

He set a level of compensation for the taxpayer funded Financial Assistance Scheme similar to that of the Industry funded Pension Protection Fund (PPF) for those whose schemes had collapses before the establishment of the PPF. Referring to the long running Pensions Action Group campaign and speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Moneybox program on the day compensation was announced, pensions expert Ros Altmann, credited Hain and Mike O'Brien with "having been very different to deal with than their predecessors and..willing and eager to engage and find a way to sort this out."[25]

On 12 September 2006, he announced his candidacy for the position of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. In January 2007, Hain gave an interview to the New Statesman in which he made his pitch for the Deputy Leadership and referred to the Bush administration as "the most right-wing American administration, if not ever, then in living memory" and argued that "the neo-con agenda for America has been rejected by the people and I hope that will be the case for the future".[26] Hain was eliminated in the second round of the Deputy Leadership election, coming fifth out of the six candidates, with Harriet Harman being the successful candidate.[27]

In January 2008, The Guardian reported that Hain had failed to declare some 20 donations worth a total of over £100,000 during his deputy leadership campaign and would be investigated by the Electoral commission.[28] Hain admitted "deeply regrettable administrative failings" but faced questioning on whether the oversight was due to changes in campaign manager possibly causing "chaos" during the campaign or the desire of some donors to remain private.[28] Phil Taylor, the first campaign manager, said that Hain insisted on knowing who had donated and that it was legal. His campaign only reported a separate £82,000 of donations and The Guardian believes he stopped taking a personal interest in funding once the campaign ended though there was no evidence that he deliberately broke the law.[28]

Hain during Labour Party conference 2009

Taylor's successor was Steve Morgan,[28] and it later emerged that four donations were channelled through a non-operating think tank, the Progressive Policies Forum (PPF) which may be connected with Morgan, who was named as a donor.[29] On 12 January, Hain released a statement saying that he wanted to get on with his job and it was absurd to think he had deliberately hidden anything.[30] John Underwood, a trustee of the PPF, said that the donations and loans were "entirely permissible", though Hain said he would pay back a £25,000 interest-free loan.[30]

On 24 January 2008, he resigned from several posts including his position as Work and Pensions secretary, after the Electoral Commission referred the failure to report donations to Metropolitan Police. He cited a desire to "clear his name" as the reason for his resignation. Hain was the first person to resign from Gordon Brown's cabinet. He was replaced as Secretary of State for Wales by Paul Murphy, and as Secretary for Work and Pensions by James Purnell in a forced cabinet reshuffle.[31]

Hain's campaign had properly declared some £100,000 of donations but failed to declare £103,156 of donations, contrary to electoral law.[32] On 3 July 2008, the Metropolitan Police announced that they had referred Hain's case to the Crown Prosecution Service.[33] On 5 December 2008 the CPS announced that Hain would not be charged because Hain was not responsible and did not control the members' association Hain4Labour that funded his campaign.[34][35] He returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales the following year.

Hain was re-appointed Shadow Welsh Secretary in Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet after Miliband's election as leader in 2010.[36] He was a supporter of the unsuccessful Alternative Vote system in the May 2011 referendum.[37] In May 2012, he announced his retirement from front-line politics.[36]

On 27 March 2012, the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, John Larkin QC obtained leave from Lord Justice Higgins to bring proceedings against Hain and "Biteback Publishing" for contempt of court.[38] Although Hain's book Outside In had already been passed by the Cabinet Office and the Northern Ireland Office prior to publication,[39] the alleged contempt related to statements about Lord Justice Girvan's disposal of an application for judicial review while Hain was Secretary of State.[39][40]

Hain's remarks had previously been strongly criticised by the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Declan Morgan though the decision to charge Hain with "scandalising the court", using a law already obsolete in 1899 drew ridicule in Westminster and strong criticism from senior DUP ministers.[41] According to the Attorney General, Hain's statements prejudiced the administration of justice and amounted to an unjustifiable attack on the judiciary.[42] At a preliminary hearing before a Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice on 24 April 2012, Hain's counsel suggested that the action had no basis in common law and was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. The trial was intended to take place on 19 June 2012[43][44] but the case was dropped on 17 May 2012 after Hain agreed to clarify comments to show he didn't question Girvan's motives or his handling of the judicial review.[45]