He was far more colourful and unorthodox, publicly opposing apartheid and police racism, among other issues.

[4] When Tony Blair's Labour government proposed the House of Lords Bill in 1999 to strip voting rights from the mostly Conservative hereditary peers in the House of Lords, Onslow said that he was happy to force a division on every clause of the Scotland Bill; each division takes 20 minutes and there were more than 270 clauses.

This was a move to ruin the government's legislative programme in protest at the removal.

Onslow added he would "behave like a football hooligan" on this legislative programme, which he opposed.

[8] He was a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights from July 2005 until his death,[9] in which capacity he strongly criticised Jacqui Smith over the government's proposed extension to the detention of terror suspects to 42 days.