the time of the Spanish Civil War, Roberts was nicknamed "MP for Spain". He led a delegation of six Members of Parliament to Republican Spain in November 1936. Roberts was Secretary of the National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief, the formation of which from the Parliamentary Committee for Spain he proposed. He worked with Conservative MP Katharine Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl, as Chair, David Grenfell of the Labour Party, and Eleanor Rathbone the Independent MP, from 1937 to 1940. With the Conservative MP John Macnamara, Roberts was also joint secretary of the Basque Children's Committee. He worked in the relief effort for Basque refugees, with Christopher Hill as one of his colleagues. The initial reception camp for Basque children was at Stoneham in Hampshire, and was organised by Roberts and Henry Brinton, in response to the relief efforts of Leah Manning in May 1937 at Bilbao. In June Roberts announced with the Countess of Atholl that over 1000 children had been moved from the camp to Catholic homes. Popular Front Roberts was a supporter of the Popular Front seeking an alliance between left-of-centre political forces. The Popular Front was not officially endorsed by the Liberal Party, but was supported by a number of other Liberal MPs such as Megan Lloyd George and Richard Acland. Roberts spoke at the 1938 Emergency Conference for a Popular Front. He was embarrassed and angry, however, when he was chairing the Spain Conference in the Queen's Hall, and the "Internationale" was sung. At this period he was an active speaker for the Left Book Club (LBC), a publishing company founded in 1936, with Acland. The Popular Front gained additional credibility when it was advocated by Sir Stafford Cripps. Both Roberts and Acland were counted by Cripps in "The Group", his cadre of supporters gathered after he was expelled from the Labour Party in early 1939. The LBC organisation had grown to the point that it held public meetings and rallies. John Strachey in late 1938 saw the move by which Acland, Cripps and Roberts were proposed as additions to the LBC book selection committee as the beginning of an "Anti-Fascist Association". As an LBC speaker, Roberts was in a Popular Front group prepared to share platforms, with Acland, Sir Norman Angell, Cripps, David Lloyd George, Hewlett Johnson, Harry Pollitt, Paul Robeson and Strachey. He spoke with most of them on 24 April 1939, at the