Before finally gaining election at
Billericay in 1955, Body had fought several elections across the country without success. He was the
Conservative candidate for
Deptford at the
1949 London County Council election, then
Rotherham in the
1950 general election,
Abertillery in a
by-election that same year, and then
Leek in
1951. Rural
Buckinghamshire-born, and representing fertile
South Holland, Body was an early supporter of
environmental causes within the Conservative Party. Coming from a British agriculture perspective, he was highly critical of many aspects associated with the heavily subsidised agriculture associated with the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the
European Economic Community (EEC). He was knighted in 1986. The incident prompted
Cabinet Secretary Robin Butler to warn Channel 4 head
Michael Grade against any further calls for fear that state secrets could be inadvertently leaked. In his later years as an MP, Body clearly distanced himself from an increasingly
economic-rationalist and
internationalist Tory party by associating himself with a number of environmentalist groups who disapproved of large national or
free trade groupings and supported smaller, more "natural" and "organic" communities. He has been associated with such long-standing figures of the green movement such as
Edward Goldsmith,
John Seymour, and
John Papworth. Unlike the vast majority of Conservative MPs, Body voted to equalise the age of consent for homosexuals, and also supported the legalisation of
cannabis. He called for an
English Parliament in his book
England for the English, published in April 2001. Body's fervent
euroscepticism led to him being numbered amongst the rebellious "bastards" condemned by
John Major in 1993. His actions regarding Europe eventually led to his resigning the Conservative whip for a temporary period. He authored multiple eurosceptic books, including
A Europe of Many Circles (1990) and
The Breakdown of Europe (1998) (which deliberately echoed the title of
Leopold Kohr's book
The Breakdown of Nations). On 10 November 1999, Body put forward an
Early day motion in support of the writer
Robert Henderson, who believed that the security services had interfered with his mail and telephone line after he had written allegedly threatening letters to Prime Minister
Tony Blair, his wife
Cherie, and various
Labour MPs. This followed an article by Henderson in
Wisden Cricket Monthly in 1995 entitled "Is it in the blood?" which suggested that only "unequivocal Englishmen" should play cricket for England. Body's motion not only defended Henderson and accused Blair of interfering with Henderson's activities, but referred to "publicly reported incidents of
racism within the Labour Party". ==Later life==