He stood in the 2005 general election as an anti-war independent candidate for in Sedgefield, a constituency represented by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
[1] His son, Lance Corporal Tom Keys, was one of six Royal Military Policemen killed by an Iraqi mob in Majar al-Kabir in June 2003.
[4] Keys declared at the outset of the campaign that he had been a Labour Party voter and was still basically socialist, but that he was seeking election as a candidate opposed to Blair's policy on the Iraq War.
Reviewing the 2005 election's most memorable moments the BBC noted: Independent Reg Keys polled 10% of the vote in Tony Blair's Sedgefield constituency on an anti-war ticket.
But it was his moving lament for the son he lost in Iraq that will linger in the memory – not for Mr Keys' words necessarily, although these were powerful enough, but for Tony Blair's expression as he listened to them.
[8] In August 2006, Reg Keys and other relatives of military personnel killed in Iraq announced the creation of a new political party named Spectre.