On 4 July 1963, Wogan Philipps, the 2nd Baron Milford, delivered his maiden speech in the House of Lords.

Philipps’ presence in the upper chamber was a political anomaly. He had been a committed communist since the 1930s, when he served as an ambulance driver for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. In 1946, Philipps was elected as a Communist councillor on Cirencester Urban District Council; he later stood as a candidate in the 1950 general election, winning 423 votes (0.9%) in the Cirencester and Tewkesbury constituency.

Philipps’ father, Laurence, was raised to the peerage as Baron Milford of Llanstephan in the County of Radnor in 1939.

Wogan was disinherited and had his allowance cancelled upon joining the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1937. Laurence Philipps’ will reportedly stipulated that any beneficiary who was a communist or a fellow-traveller would forfeit any interest in the estate.

But Philipps still succeeded his father in his titles when the 1st Baron Milford died, aged 88, in December 1962.

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Lord Milford delivered his maiden speech on the second reading of the Peerage Bill.

The proposed legislation – which would later become the Peerage Act 1963 – aimed to allow members of the Lords to renounce their peerages. Tony Benn, then the 2nd Viscount Stansgate, was the leading force behind the legislation. Its passage ultimately allowed him to disclaim his title and return to the commons as the Labour MP for Bristol South East.

As the first and only member of the Communist Party to sit in the Lords, Milford used his maiden speech to call for the abolition of the chamber.

Maiden speeches in the Lords are, by convention, non-controversial. But Milford began his speech with a declaration of his intent to break this tradition.

The communist peer told the House: “I have been warned that in a maiden speech one should never be controversial; but I find myself disagreeing with so much of what [has been said], that I do not know how not to be.”

Milford praised Benn’s “long fight” to renounce his peerage, but spoke in opposition to the bill.

He delivered a Marxist critique, likely the upper chamber’s first, of the House of Lords and the Macmillan government’s reform proposals. He characterised the bill as a cynical measure to “perpetuate this chamber” and the hereditary principle which underpinned it.

Milford rejected the bill as a “minor unimportant reform” intended to give the Lords a “new look”, thus making it “more acceptable as an apparently democratic institution in the eyes of the people, in the hope of damping down demands for its complete abolition as an anachronism.”

He added: “It does nothing, really, to alter this chamber in any way. Any reforms of this chamber that have been wrung from Tory governments have gone through only because the Tories see them as a step to perpetuate this House of Lords.

“Alas! this bill does not touch on the fundamental questions and problems of this House at all.”

Milford set about deconstructing the House of Lords.

He denied that peers inherit “some special ability or talent”; rather, they inherit “wealth and privilege based on wealth – a principle which cuts right across every conception of democracy.”

He described the “character and function” of the House, whatever its political composition, as to “protect wealth and privilege.”

He declared: “Britain is the only industrial country in which the hereditary principle of choosing legislators still survives; a principle which belongs to the age of the divine right of kings, and which is entirely out of place in this age of automation, space flights, sweeping technological changes; the age of the advance of socialism, the democratic rights of the common people and the national liberation of the colonial people.”

For these reasons, Milford referred to the bill before the House as of “no great value to me or my party.”

From sedentary positions, several peers responded: “Which [party] is that?”

But Milford continued: “The noble Tory Lords here will leave this chamber knowing that there are hundreds more remaining who will continue to obstruct anything dangerous to their interests and privileges. For these reasons, I and my party are for the complete abolition of this chamber”.

Milford then turned to the platform of the Communist Party, declaring: “The world is fast towards a new social system; a system of socialism”.

He told the House: “It is in the very bones of the British property owners to strive to maintain the system of capitalism on which their wealth was built up, and which today is not only an outdated system but a barrier to the welfare of the British people and to Britain’s future.

“In its attempts to hold back advancing socialism, the Tory majority in this House will always be in favour of the cold war, always for keeping it hot; always in support of more and more money being spent on armaments, and of this country remaining a forward base of America and so certain of total destruction if war breaks out.”

He called for a “socialist society in Britain where all the commanding heights of the economy will be controlled by the ordinary British people who have, by their skill, made the wealth of this country.”

The people, he added, “will also have complete political power, and their House of Commons, with elected representatives elected by themselves, will be the sole national authority.”

The Lords “will always attempt to act against such a new society arising – no amount of reforms, such as this bill before us, will change that fact”, he said.

Milford concluded: “What we need in this country today is not a brake on democratic decisions and legislation, but an accelerator; a movement of people which, together with their elected representatives in the House of Commons, will take off the brakes and let democracy play its full part in driving Britain forward.”

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The former prime minister, Earl Attlee, rose to address the House next. Having congratulated Milford for his contribution, Attlee turned to the bill. “This afternoon we are not dealing with the major reform of the House of Lords; we are removing certain anomalies”, he said.

“There are many anomalies in this country. One curious one is that the voice of the Communist Party can be heard only in this House. That is the advantage of hereditary representation.”

Lord Auckland later referred to Milford’s “very interesting and unusual maiden speech”.

Lord Archibald said the speech as “so wide-ranging that, the House having extended the usual courtesy to him, I think it would now be quite impossible for any subsequent speaker to be out of order”.

Milford reportedly intended to disclaim his peerage – under the terms of the Peerage Act 1963. But Harry Pollitt, the CPGB leader, convinced him to stay on.

Milford’s last speech in the Lords came in 1985. From 1963 to 1985, he regularly addressed the House on issues pertaining to foreign policy.

In a speech on 30 June 1965, Milford expressed his vehement opposition to the US policy of war in Vietnam, likening the Viet Cong to “resistance movement against the Nazi occupation of France in World War II.”

He declared: “It is a terrible blow to our political honesty to-day if we cannot criticise an ally when we believe them to be in the wrong.”

Milford died on 30 November 1993, aged 91.