He was a leading and early (pre-1966) young member of the old Conservative Monday Club, and was on the platform at the Club's very successful rally at the Scottish Conservative Party's annual conference at Perth on 17 May 1968. He was first co-opted onto the Club's Executive Council on 9 September 1968. He is listed in a Club circular as one of its members standing for parliament in the General Election on 9 June 1983, for Southend East, and was elected deputy Chairman of the Club on 23 June that year. He consistently opposed the EEC and the EU and campaigned for the UK to leave. He was a leading campaigner against joining the euro and had also campaigned against metrication. Throughout his career he fought hard for the interests of British fishermen. On behalf of the Monday Club, in June 1974, he launched an attack on vandalism, saying in the House of Commons that those who defaced public buildings with aerosol paint should be made to clean the buildings themselves.
