Sir Mark Thatcher, the disgraced son of former prime minister Baroness Thatcher, should be stripped of his hereditary title, according to an influential cross-party group of MPs.
Tony Wright, Labour chairperson of the Commons Public Administration Committee, which has investigated the honours system, said: ”If we give honours for honours, we should remove them for dishonours.”
Thatcher’s title was passed to him when his father, Sir Denis, died in June 2003.
Last week, Thatcher received a four-year suspended jail sentence and a R3-million fine in South Africa after a plea-bargaining deal in which he admitted playing a role in an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea.
It was revealed he had funded the purchase of a helicopter to be used by a team of mercenaries.
Thatcher always claimed he had no knowledge of the plans to use the aircraft to depose the president of the oil-rich West African state. The fine was paid by his mother, who also put up bail after his arrest in Cape Town last August.
Thatcher, whose link to the coup plotters was revealed by The Observer, was asked to fund the helicopter deal by Simon Mann, the Old Etonian former SAS officer who is in jail in Zimbabwe after being convicted of being one of the masterminds of the coup plot.
Backbench MPs have tabled an early-day motion calling on ministers to strip Thatcher of his title. Neil Gerrard, Labour MP for Walthamstow, said Labour has always been opposed to the principle of hereditary peerages and ministers should use the example to show they mean what they say.
Any decision would ultimately lie with the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, whose proposed reform of the House of Lords would see peers lose their titles if given prison sentences. Falconer is known to be keen to see the disgraced Tory peer Lord Jeffrey Archer stripped of his title after he served two years in prison for committing perjury.
There have been examples of individuals losing their knighthoods. The champion jockey Lester Piggott lost his after being found guilty of tax evasion and the financial consultant Jack Lyons lost his title after being found guilty of taking part in the Guinness share-dealing scandal in the 1990s.
In 1621, philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon was charged with taking bribes, stripped of his title and fined.
Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson, said: ”The award of an hereditary title to Denis Thatcher was deeply controversial at the time.The reservations expressed then are more than justified by the fact that Mark Thatcher has pleaded guilty to a serious criminal offence, which could well have profoundly damaging consequences for British interests abroad.”
Former prime minister John Major awarded Denis Thatcher his baronetcy. He told Wright’s committee last May he had been reluctant to award the title but had been lobbied by ”influential figures” in the Conservative Party.
Thatcher still faces the possibility of prosecution by the regime of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in Equatorial Guinea, which wants to extradite him. Lawyers are pursuing civil prosecution against London-based businessmen for providing backing to the coup and are considering whether to add Thatcher to the action. — Guardian Unlimited Â