Robert Hayward: Remembering Paul Barnes – a true believer of equality

Robert Hayward, Lord Hayward, is a member of the House of Lords.

The story of equal rights in Britain is usually told through landmark votes, famous campaigners and great changes in the law. Political progress also depends on people who work more quietly. Those who shape arguments, persuade their own side and make once-unthinkable positions gradually seem the norm. My friend Paul Barnes, who died recently, was one of those people.

Paul played an integral part in an extraordinary period of Conservative history. He was involved from the beginning of the Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality, TORCHE, which succeeded the Conservative Group for Homosexual Equality in 1992, and served as its chairman from 1993 until 1997.

The name was important. Paul was not arguing for tolerance or special treatment, but for equality.

At the time, this was far from an easy case to make within the Conservative Party of the early 1990s. Gay men still faced a higher age of consent and gay people could not serve openly in the Armed Forces. Section 28 remained on the statute book and same-sex relationships had no legal recognition. Adoption by gay couples and equal marriage seemed remote ambitions.

Paul was exceptionally well equipped for the task at hand. A gifted public affairs professional, he understood that political change depends not simply on having the better argument, but on judgement, timing, relationships and an instinct for how people can be persuaded. He knew how institutions worked and, crucially, how to frame an argument in a way that allowed people to change their minds.

The case he made for equality was therefore rooted firmly in Conservative principles: individual liberty, privacy, personal responsibility and equality before the law. He was not asking Conservatives to abandon their beliefs, but to apply them consistently.

That approach mattered during the parliamentary battle over the age of consent in 1994.

Parliament reduced the age of consent for gay men from 21 to 18, while rejecting equality at 16. Paul and TORCHE continued to argue for the principle that eventually prevailed. He took a similar approach to the exclusion of gay people from the Armed Forces, challenging the contradiction of decriminalising homosexuality within the services while continuing to dismiss gay personnel.

Lobbying, briefing, conversation and persuasion – these will examples of the painstaking political work which was required. Paul understood that changing minds often meant continuing to talk to people with whom you profoundly disagreed.

His contribution was, of course, part of a much larger movement. Many other organisations and campaigners played decisive roles in transforming Britain, and Paul would never have claimed otherwise. Movements need people working from within institutions as well as pressure from outside them, and Paul was particularly skilled at that form of advocacy.

He was persuasive without being hectoring, determined without becoming doctrinaire, and political without allowing politics to consume every relationship. He was also warm, funny, loyal and immensely good company. Those qualities were not incidental to his effectiveness, but were a part of it.

The Britain in which Paul died is profoundly different from the one in which he began campaigning. People serve openly in the Armed Forces, Section 28 is gone, the age of consent is equal and same-sex couples marry and raise families with protections earlier generations could scarcely have imagined. For me, one of the happiest parts of Paul’s story is that he lived to enjoy the freedoms he had spent so many years campaigning for, not least in marrying his wonderful husband, Carlos, whom he adored.

To younger people, those freedoms may seem entirely ordinary. I hope they do, because making equality ordinary was the point.

Paul helped make that happen. Britain is a freer country because people like him were prepared to make difficult arguments before they became easy ones. His recent death is a great loss to those of us who knew and loved him, and I shall miss him enormously.