Nigel Anthony

    

The Right Honourable The Lord Anthony KG GCMG CH MC PC
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office June 25, 1983 – November 28, 1992
Monarch	Richard IV
Preceded by	John MacIsaac
Succeeded by	Marcus Hope
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
In office January 27, 1981 – June 25, 1983
Prime Minister	John MacIsaac
Preceded by	Leonard Mattis
Succeeded by	William Osborne
Secretary of State for Defence
In office May 20, 1979 – January 27, 1981
Prime Minister	John MacIsaac
Preceded by	John Wade
Succeeded by	Benjamin Lyndwood
Additional positions Leader of the Conservative Party In office June 25, 1983 – March 9, 1994 Preceded by John MacIsaac Succeeded by Position abolished Member of the United Kingdom Parliament for Huntingdon In office October 16, 1970 – May 2, 2001 Preceded by TBD Succeeded by TBD Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal In office October 5, 2001 – December 3, 2020 Life peerage Leader of United Britain in the House of Lords In office October 9, 2001 – December 1, 2015 Preceded by TBD Succeeded by The Baron Stanhope of North Cape
Personal details
Born	(1927-11-07)November 7, 1927 Lode, Cambridgeshire, England
Died	December 3, 2020(2020-12-03) (aged 93) London, England
Citizenship	British
Political party	Conservative (1965–1994)
Other political affiliations	United Britain (1994–2020)
Spouse(s)	Alice Varley (m. 1962)
Children	3
Alma mater	Eton College Royal Military Academy Sandhurst London School of Economics
Religion	Anglican
Military service
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Branch/service	British Army
Years of service	1950–1965
Rank	Colonel
Unit	Duke of Wellington's Regiment
Battles/wars	Vietnam War

Nigel Denis Anthony (November 7, 1927 – December 3, 2020) was a British Conservative statesman who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1983 until 1992. He was the Member of Parliament for Huntingdon from 1970 to 2001 and held cabinet positions in the government of John MacIsaac from 1979 to 1983 as the Defence Secretary and later as Foreign Secretary. After leaving the Parliament, he became a life peer in the House of Lords as Baron Anthony of Upton until his death in 2020. Anthony was also the last leader of the Conservative Party before it dissolved after massive internal divisions in 1994 following its historic defeat in the 1992 United Kingdom general election, at which point he joined its successor, United Britain.

He was educated at Eton College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst before being commissioned into the Duke of Wellington's Regiment as a lieutenant. Serving in the British Army during the Cold War and deployed during the Vietnam War where he served as an advisory to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam of South Vietnam. During his tour in Vietnam, he came into contact in direct engagements against the Viet Cong and was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry for his service. He retired from the Army in 1965 and worked for the Conservative Party at its campaign headquarters, before running for a seat in Parliament in the Huntingdon constituency of Cambridgeshire. Anthony won his election and served as an MP during the Labour government of Anna Rhodes, becoming a critic of her conciliatory policies towards Spain and her agreeing to hold a referendum on the status of Gibraltar in 1975. Anthony called for a forceful British response to Spanish violations of British Gibraltar territorial waters and its claims over Gibraltar. He rose to prominence in the 1970s due to his background and expertise in foreign and defense policy, arguing for a non-compromising stance against the Eastern Bloc and supporting Transamericanism. When the Conservatives won the 1979 election, Anthony was chosen to join the John MacIsaac ministry, first serving as Defence Secretary before the resignation of Leonard Mattis led to him becoming Foreign Secretary in 1981.

When MacIsaac stepped down ahead of the 1983 election due to health issues, Anthony was elected as Leader of the Conservatives and became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, maintaining the Conservative majority in Parliament. On the domestic front, his government favored neoliberal economics, causing the privatization of several industries (including British Rail), reducing the power of unions, and cutting regulations. He also worked to reign in the high inflation of the 1970s, which led to an economic upturn in the early to mid-1980s, and attempted to roll back the post-Great War cuts to the British Armed Forces that had been done by the Rhodes ministry. In 1987 he approved British participation along with the Antilles in Operation Uphold Democracy, an intervention in Jamaica against a military government that seized power in a coup, and provided extensive support to Iraq during the War in the Levant against Ba'athist Syria. He also organized the creation of a permanent Royal Navy presence in the Persian Gulf and supported military aid to the anti-Chinese forces in the Sino-Tajik War. He was one of the mediators in negotiations that led to China's withdrawal from Tajikistan. Along with Sierran prime minister Ted Brundy, Superian president Alexander Ludendorff, and German chancellor Olaf Gerhardt, Anthony was seen as one of the hardline anti-communist leaders of the Western Bloc during the late Cold War.

The initial economic boom during his premiership subsided by 1989, with the resulting economic downturn and military interventionism making Anthony's government increasingly unpopular at the start of the 1990s, especially as Britain's Western allies began promoting peaceful coexistence. The Conservative Party was also split between a neoconservative faction that favored fighting the Cold War and participating in NTO and the European Community, and a growing UK Independence Party that believed these foreign commitments brought too much of an economic and political cost to Britain, arguing for winding down the Cold War. Disagreements threatened to split the party by 1992, and Labour won their first major success in over a decade during that year's general election, leading to a historic Conservative defeat. Anthony attempted to hold the party together, but under immense pressure he resigned as party leader, and shortly afterwards the party dissolved because of the mass exodus of Conservatives to United Britain. His premiership has a mixed legacy, being seen as contributing to ending the Cold War and cementing Britain's sovereignty over its remaining overseas territories, but also causing the dissolution of the Conservative Party in 1994 and paving the way for two decades of neoliberal economic policies under his successors Marcus Hope and Douglas Walker.

He remained an MP for Huntingdon until 2001, when he was made a life peer in the House of Lords. Anthony became the Chancellor of the Order of the Garter from 2004 until his death and was also the Leader of United Britain in the House of Lords from 2001 until 2015. As a life peer, he supported the invasion of Syria and Britain's involvement in Anglo-American War on Terror during Douglas Walker's premiership, and supported the candidacy of John McLeod for the 2019 United Britain leadership election against Clive Spencer. He also described the premiership of Labour leader Paul Grove, following the 2010 "red wave" election, as a "complete disaster." Towards the end of his life he changed his opinion on the Clive Spencer ministry, due to Spencer's efforts to increase the size of the British Armed Forces and reduce immigration.

Personal life

Lord Anthony as the Chancellor of the Order of the Garter.

Awards, honors, decorations

Domestic

• Military Cross
• Knight of the Order of the Garter
• Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
• Companion of the Order of the Companions of Honour
• Life peerage as Baron Anthony of Upton

Foreign

Coat of arms

Coat of arms of Nigel Anthony

Notes 1st Baron Anthony of Upton Coronet A coronet of a Baron Crest An elephant's head erased or eared gules charged on the neck with three fleurs-de-lis, two and one azure. Torse Mantling: Or and sable. Escutcheon Or, a chevron cotised between three demi-griffins couped those in chief respectant sable. Supporters Two griffins wings elevated sable, the dexter charged on the body with three fleurs-de-lis palewise or and the sinister with three trefoils slipped palewise of the last. Motto TENAX ET FIDELIS Latin: Tenacious and faithful Orders The Order of the Garter circlet. Banner The banner of the Baron Anthony's arms as knight of the Garter

See also

This page uses material from the Wikipedia page Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).