William Hopper (politician) - European Parliament

European Parliament

Hopper became increasingly involved in politics in the late 1970s. In August 1977 he wrote to The Times to criticise Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey for threatening retaliation against companies who broke Government incomes policy; Hopper considered that doing so was arbitrary and amounted to an abandonment of the rule of law. He asked rhetorically whether "liberal democracy dead in the land of its birth?" For the 1979 European Parliament election, Hopper was chosen as the Conservative Party candidate for Greater Manchester West, a constituency which included Bolton, Salford and Altrincham. The constituency had had a Labour majority at the 1979 general election but Hopper succeeded in scoring a surprise victory by 302 votes, which made it the narrowest win in the country.