Brown was selected for the
marginal constituency of
Brigg and Scunthorpe and was elected at the
1979 general election. In 1983, following favourable boundary changes, he was elected for the new seat of
Brigg and Cleethorpes. This followed a bitter selection battle between Brown and
Michael Brotherton, who was MP for the
Louth constituency, which included the towns of
Immingham and
Cleethorpes. Brown threatened to resign from parliament when the village of
North Killingholme, in the centre of his constituency was marked as a potential site for
nuclear dumping. Brown served as
Parliamentary Private Secretary to
Douglas Hogg,
Minister of State at the
Department of Trade and Industry, from 1989 to 1990, and then at the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1990 to 1992. From 1992 to 1993 he was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to
Patrick Mayhew,
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He was appointed as an Assistant Government
Whip in 1993.
Right-wing activity Brown was involved in the right-wing Conservative circles including the
Monday Club and the
Eldon League. Brown was a founding member of the
No Turning Back group which included
Michael Portillo,
Peter Lilley and
Neil Hamilton. Brown regarded Portillo as one of his closest friends in the early years of the 1980s claiming, "we hit it off right away." He accompanied Portillo on holidays with other friends including Derek Laud.
Southern Africa Brown was a supporter of
South Africa's ruling
National Party during
apartheid and visited that country with
Neil Hamilton on a trip financed by the South African authorities in February 1988. Hamilton went on more than one tour of South Africa. During the
Cash for Questions parliamentary scandal, Brown admitted to, and apologised for, accepting money to lobby on behalf of US Tobacco without declaring it. He was alleged to have received £6,000 from Ian Greer Associates to lobby on behalf of US Tobacco, and to have failed to declare it in the Register of Members' Interests or to ministers. He was further alleged to have not declared the income from Ian Greer Associates until the payments became publicly known. The Parliamentary investigation found that Brown failed to register an introduction payment from Mr Greer on behalf of US Tobacco and that he "persistently and deliberately" failed to declare an interest in Skoal Bandits in his dealings with ministers over the issue. He did not immediately declare the payment to the Inland Revenue. Mr Brown also received a free flight to
Connecticut to be briefed by the company, which he did record in the Register of Members' Interests.
Resignation Brown resigned as an Assistant Whip in May 1994 after
The News of the World published pictures of him on holiday in
Barbados with a 20-year-old gay man. At the time, the
age of consent for homosexual activity was 21, so the paper ran the story under the headline
"Lawmaker as lawbreaker". After resigning, Brown subsequently acknowledged his homosexuality. The media linked Brown's resignation to Prime Minister John Major's ill-fated
Back to Basics campaign. ==After Westminster==