It was a mistake, though, to cast him as a conventional rightwinger. Others on the right were Thatcherite to the end, sceptical about Europe and sympathetic to South Africa. Stanbrook, in contrast, voted for Michael Heseltine in both the 1990 leadership ballots, supported Europe throughout his parliamentary career and swung from a Powellite stance on immigration to become one of the most passionate opponents of apartheid.

There were other contradictions. In public, whether practising in the courts or speaking in the Commons, he appeared unyielding and often abrasive. In private he was amiable, self-deprecating and often amusing. Even Gorman, who believed that his views belonged to another age, conceded: “Ivor is a sweet man.” He was essentially an individualist, which meant that he was always a potential rebel, as his whips discovered. He was largely responsible for the only government defeat in the Commons during the 1983-1987 Parliament when he led the revolt against Sunday trading.

Ivor Robert Stanbrook was born at Stonebridge, where his father ran a family laundry business. He left Willesden Central School at 15 and became a legal assistant at Wembley Council, spending his spare time reading economics and law at Birkbeck College.

After training as aircrew — the war ended before he could fly on operations — he took his degree at London University and had a post-graduate spell at Pembroke College, Oxford, before entering the colonial service. He was in Nigeria for ten years before returning to London to be called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1960.

He was engaged mostly in criminal law, adding to his income by acting as night lawyer for the Daily Express. He had always hoped to enter the Commons and in 1966 he fought the solid Labour seat at East Ham South, making sufficient impression to be selected as candidate for Orpington at the next election. Orpington was a tricky seat, for it had been won by the Liberals at a famous by-election in 1962. The victor, Eric Lubbock, who later became Lord Avebury, had held it in the 1964 and 1966 elections but Stanbrook regained it for the Tories in 1970 by more than 1,300 votes. By the time he left the Commons he had raised the majority to nearly 13,000.

His frequent speeches in the House made his brand of politics clear from the start. Britain, he claimed, was spiritually sick and he wanted the country to find a new role as leader of a united Europe. Parents should be able to remove their children from sex education classes unless these had a Christian basis. The Arts Council was peddling rubbish. Politically preoccupied clergy were arrogant and presumptuous. But he reserved his chief scorn for feminists. He described the Equal Opportunities Commission as “a farcical body” and “a gigantic con” and later demanded its abolition because it was “foolish and irrelevant”. He opposed the ordination of women because the proposal was part of “a worldwide fad for surrender to feminism”. Women who went out to work inflicted psychological damage on themselves and their children and he opposed financing more nursery places to help working mothers.

Widespread condemnation of his views failed to daunt him. He was the first to break Tory ranks over the Cecil Parkinson affair, demanding Parkinson’s resignation because he was “a selfconfessed adulterer and a damned fool”. He spoke out persistently against Sunday trading and Sunday sport. He blamed the Irish government for obstructing extradition of terrorists and despite a letter-bomb sent to his constituency offices he continued to criticise any move allowing Dublin to “meddle” in Ulster affairs. When Kevin O’Donnell, who had been cleared at the Old Bailey of gun-running, was shot dead in 1992 while acting as an IRA gunman in Ulster, Stanbrook commented: “There is no limit to the gullibility of a jury.”

But Stanbrook, regarded by Labour as the most reactionary of men, surprised his critics by opposing apartheid as fervently as anybody on the Left. He had begun by supporting Enoch Powell because he believed that immigration could not be absorbed into Britain without intolerable stress. He changed because he concluded that the problem itself had changed and had become one of making integration work rather than seeking a solution through repatriation.

His experiences in Nigeria contributed to his sympathy with black people. In 1987 he became chairman of the all-party committee set up to counter a pro-South African committee led by his fellow Tory MP John Carlisle. Stanbrook complained that Mrs Thatcher “appeared to condemn sanctions more than apartheid”. He declared in words that could have come from a leader in Tribune: “The ANC has been driven to violence and who can condemn them for that?” By 1988 he was urging tougher sanctions, maintaining that South Africa could be induced to change only through more pressure. He welcomed the International Cricket Conference’s curb on cricketers playing in South Africa and called for continuing sanctions until profound and irreversible changes had been made.

It was Mrs Thatcher’s attitude to South Africa, combined with what he perceived as her basic anti-Europeanism, that caused Stanbrook to vote for Heseltine in the two ballots which ended her premiership. It was ironic that Stanbrook, one of nature’s Roundheads, should give his support to Heseltine the Cavalier. It brought Stanbrook into conflict with some members of his constituency party, but this development did not disturb him. In the leadership election, as in all his political actions, Stanbrook had no doubt where his duty lay — and therefore no complaints if he was on the losing side.

He was married in 1946 to Joan Clement. It was a particularly happy marriage. She died in 2000. He is survived by their two sons.

Ivor Stanbrook, Conservative MP, 1970-1992, was born on January 13, 1924. He died on February 18, 2004, aged 80.