Sir Dennis Murray WaltersMBE (28 November 1928 – 1 October 2021) was a BritishConservative Party politician who served as theMember of Parliament (MP) forWestbury from 1964 to 1992.^[1][2]

The son of Douglas L. Walters and Clara Walters (née Pomello), Walters was of English and Italian descent and born in Italy.^[3] He was brought up as aRoman Catholic. At the outbreak of theSecond World War he was in Italy and was interned, but after the Armistice of 1943 he was released and served for eleven months with theItalian Resistance. He then returned to England and was educated atDownside School andSt Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he read Modern Languages as an Exhibitioner and completed anMA.^[4][5]

In the late 1950s, Walters was employed as personal assistant to the Conservative peerLord Hailsham throughout his chairmanship of the Conservative Party.^[6]

At the 1959 general election, Walters contestedBlyth for the Conservatives, fighting the seat again the next year at aby-election afterAlf Robens was appointed to theHouse of Lords.^[7] In October 1962, he was selected as his party's candidate for the Conservative-heldsafe seat ofWestbury,^[8] which he represented asMember of Parliament (MP) for 28 years from 1964 onwards. During his early years in the Commons, he worked closely with Shadow Foreign SecretarySir Alec Douglas-Home, of whom he later wrote "I could not imagine a more considerate, fair, or civilised person to serve."^[9]

Following theSix-Day War of 1967, Walters visitedPalestine with his parliamentary colleagueIan Gilmour, and in a joint statement they said "The Israeli attitude to the refugees becomes clearer when their return rather than their expulsion is considered. Most people in Britain probably believe that Israel has agreed to their return and that repatriation is now satisfactorily proceeding. Nothing could be further from the truth."^[10] This was an early signal of the willingness of Walters and Gilmour to work closely together to explain the Arab point of view to the Western world, and they became close allies.^[11]

Outside parliament, Walters served as Chairman ofMiddle East International, founded in 1971 byChristopher Mayhew with "a mission to provide authoritative and independent news and analysis on the Middle East." A sympathiser with Arab interests, from 1970 to 1982 he was Chairman of theCouncil for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding and from 1978 to 1981 joint Chairman of the Euro-Arab Parliamentary Association.^[5] He was also a company director with interests in investment, advertising,public relations and travel.

In 1980, Walters established the Conservative Middle East Council, primarily to help give a voice to Conservatives who supported the Palestinians in their demands for self-determination. In 1967, following theSix Day War, Sir Dennis had visited the region with his Conservative colleague and close political ally,Ian Gilmour, to argue for the return of Palestinian refugees.^[12]

The establishment of CMEC by Sir Dennis followed theVenice Declaration of June 1980,^[13] when the then nine members of the European Economic Community registered their concern over the continued building of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Sir Dennis and other Conservatives also viewed continued settlement building in the Occupied Territories as an obstacle to peace and resolved that the traditional ties and common interests which link Europe to the Middle East obliged them to play a special role in working towards a lasting peace.

Sir Dennis was CMEC’s first Chairman and a decade later became its president. Knighted in 1988, Sir Dennis was an outspoken critic of certain aspects of the government’s foreign policy in the Middle East, not least its decision to lend its support the US bombing of Libya, which was carried out in April 1986 in retaliation for Tripoli-sponsored acts of terrorism.

When the Conservatives returned to government in 1979, Walters's well-known pro-Arabism cost him the chance of advancement as aForeign Office minister, the area in which his hopes lay, as in the shape of Gilmour,Margaret Thatcher was willing to appoint one pro-Arab colleague, but not two.^[14]

From 1965 to the 1990s, he served as a Governor of theBritish Institute of Florence.^[5] Walters retired from parliament in 1992, to be succeeded as member for Westbury byDavid Faber.^[2]

In 1960, Walters was appointedMBE for political services.^[5] He wasknighted in 1988, made a Commander of theNational Order of the Cedar of Lebanon in 1969, and aGrande Ufficiale of the Ordine al Merito Repubblica (Italy) in 2012.^[2]

Walters was married three times: firstly in 1955 to Vanora McIndoe, a daughter of the surgeonSir Archibald McIndoe (divorced 1969); secondly in 1970 toCelia Sandys, daughter of the politicianDuncan Sandys (divorced 1979); and thirdly, in 1981, to Bridgett Shearer, daughter of the late J. Francis Shearer (divorced 2004).^[15] By his first wife, he had a son and daughter; by his second wife, a son, and by his third wife, a daughter and son.^[5] He lived in Chelsea.^[2]

He was a member of theBoodle's,Hurlingham andQueen's clubs. Walters' memoirs,Not Always with the Pack, were published in 1989, and translated into a revised Italian edition, which was issued in 1991.^[2]

Walters died on 1 October 2021, at the age of 92.^[3][16]

• Not Always with the Pack. United Kingdom, Constable, 1989.ISBN 9780094693104
• Benedetti Inglesi Benedetti Italiani (Italian translation, revised edition), 1991.

• The Times Guide to the House of Commons,Times Newspapers Ltd, 1966, 1987 & 1992
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages^{[self-published source][better source needed]}

• Hansard 1803–2005:contributions in Parliament by Dennis Walters