Sir Peter Michael Kirk (18 May 1928 – 17 April 1977) was a British writer, broadcaster, Conservative politician, minister in the governments of Alec Douglas-Home and Edward Heath, and leading European Parliamentarian.

[2] After his election to Parliament, he continued to write freelance with regular contributions to (among others) The Daily Telegraph, National and English Review, Blackwood's, The Spectator, and Trenton Times (United States), and from 1961, to German press and television.

[2] In February 1965, the former Conservative Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister Rab Butler was elevated to the peerage and thereby gave up his parliamentary seat in Saffron Walden.

When the Conservatives regained power in 1970, Prime Minister Edward Heath appointed him as Under-Secretary for Defence for the Royal Navy from 1970 to 1973,[2] during which time he visited every British naval establishment both at home and abroad.

He led the first Tory delegation to the European Parliament in 1973, a mixed team of peers and MPs who retained their Parliamentary seats and workload on a dual mandate.

Having been too young to fight in World War II (although greatly affected by it), he heard Winston Churchill's call for a United States of Europe in September 1946, and devoted much of his career to bringing this about.