Political defections, commonly known in Westminster parlance as ‘Crossing the Floor’, have been a phenomenon in Parliament since at least the 17^th century. This has either happened en masse, as part of major schisms within pre-existing parties (such as the establishment of the Liberal Unionists in the late 19^th century, or the Social Democratic Party in 1981 and The Independent Group/Change UK in 2019), or on an individual level, motivated either by political issues of national significance, or as a result of local contexts. In the History of Parliament’s Oral History archive, multiple former MPs have recounted their decision to ‘cross the floor’ and change party affiliation. These were frequently extremely difficult decisions, often at huge personal cost, in some instances causing the end of long-term friendships or associations. They also frequently reflected major changes in British politics happening well beyond their immediate experiences.

Some MPs took the difficult decision to leave their party because of local issues, typically involving conflicts with their constituency parties. In 1973, Dick Taverne, the moderate Labour MP for Lincoln (1962-74), resigned the whip after his local party deselected him due to his pro-European views, particularly for voting in favour of the UK joining the European Economic Community (EEC).

Taverne would subsequently resign his seat to trigger a by-election, which he won under the ‘Democratic Labour’ label. It was the first time a candidate other than the Conservatives, Labour or the Liberals had won an English by-election in the post-war era. While Taverne’s parliamentary career after Labour was brief (he was defeated at the October 1974 general election by Labour’s Margaret Beckett), it anticipated later political events, most notably the defection of Labour’s ‘Gang of Four’ and the establishment of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981. Taverne himself would join the SDP, and later stand again for Parliament (in Dulwich, unsuccessfully) in 1983, before becoming a Liberal Democrat peer in 1996. In 1977, Reg Prentice (Newham North-East, formerly East Ham North, 1957-79; Daventry, 1979-87) left the Labour Party due to similar local conflicts, but took the far more controversial decision of defecting directly to the Conservatives. He would later change constituencies and serve as a minister in Margaret Thatcher’s first government. Once again, Prentice’s defection partly showcased the various political divisions emerging within the Labour Party at the end of the 1970s.

Other defections were directly motivated by national political issues. In 1976, Scottish MPs Jim Sillars (South Ayrshire, 1970-79; Glasgow Govan, 1988-92) and John Robertson (Paisley, 1961-79) both resigned from Labour to set-up the ‘Scottish Labour Party’ (SLP). They were motivated by the issue of devolution, and frustration with the failure of the incumbent Labour government to establish a devolved Scottish Assembly with substantial economic powers.

While Sillars never regretted his decision to leave Labour and set up the SLP, he did admit that it was a ‘rush to the head’ and not fully thought through.  

Nevertheless, though the SLP ultimately enjoyed little electoral success, and was dissolved by 1981, Sillars and Robertson’s defections reflected the growing influence of Scottish nationalism in British politics, and anticipated the left-wing, pro-European form it would take in the following decades. In 1988 Sillars was returned to Parliament following a by-election in Glasgow Govan, this time standing as a candidate for the Scottish National Party (SNP), on a platform designed to outflank Labour from the left

Like other defections, Nicholson’s departure from the Conservatives reflected wider developments, but was also of notable personal significance, being the member of a very prominent Conservative family.  

Our interviews with both Sillars and Nicholson emphasise the emotional cost of leaving their parties. Party membership is more than a collection of people with shared political outlook; very deep relationships are made and it can be a key part of a politician’s identity.  For Sillars, leaving the Labour Party was ‘like a Catholic leaving the church […] it’s a tremendous trauma, personal trauma’ and the pressure really affected his health (he developed ulcers), his family and marriage. Nicholson described being ‘extremely angry’ with the Conservatives before she left. In part her defection was her response to feeling ‘bullied’ by the whips and a determination to resist that behaviour. Yet it was a decision she reached ‘very sadly, because I am intrinsically a Conservative.’

One of the most unusual political defections recounted in our project was that of Andrew Hunter. Having sat as the Conservative MP for Basingstoke since 1983, Hunter resigned the party whip in 2002, before joining the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in 2004. This was the first time an MP for a mainland British constituency represented a Northern Irish party since T.P. O’Connor, the Irish Nationalist MP for Liverpool Scotland (1885-1929). Hunter’s decision was motivated by conflicts with the Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, particularly over the party’s controversial links to the right-wing Monday Club (which Hunter supported), disillusionment with the Westminster system, and a desire to pursue a political career in Northern Ireland, owing to his long-standing connections to the DUP and wider unionist community, particularly the Orange Order.  

Unsurprisingly, many of these defections sparked outrage among their former colleagues. Sillars would describe the ‘vicious’ reaction he received, while others would describe being accused of opportunism, cowardice or treason. In some instances, the defectors’ new political allies were not always entirely welcoming either. Interestingly, in many cases these defections were explained as not due to any significant change in the views of the MPs themselves, but out of discontent with their former party’s trajectory. Versions of the phrase ‘I didn’t leave the party, the party left me’ was commonly used by Labour defectors to the SDP in the 1980s, as well as by Emma Nicholson in 1995. Indeed, while some of these defections proved permanent, such as in the case of the SDP or Sillars, others were ultimately temporary. In 2016, Emma Nicholson rejoined the Conservative Party ‘with tremendous pleasure’ (BBC News, 10 September 2016), while more recently, Luciana Berger, who left Labour to form The Independent Group/Change UK in 2019 and later joined the Lib Dems, now sits in the Lords as a Labour peer. Both instances suggest that while defections have often been dramatic and bitterly divisive, reconciliation has also occasionally been possible.

Ultimately, stories from our Oral History Project reveal that political defections are often highly personal decisions and experiences, but can also reflect wider political developments, and even play a role in shaping subsequent events.

A.S. & E.P.

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Further Reading

Andy Beckett, ‘Emma Nicholson: Not her sort of party’, Independent, 31 December 1995.

Tom Chidwick, ‘“Return Taverne”: 50 years on from the Lincoln by-election’, Mile End Institute blog, 1 March 2023

Ivor Crewe and Anthony King, SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Geoff Horn, Crossing the Floor: Reg Prentice and the Crisis of British Social Democracy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016).

Ben Jackson, ‘From British Labourism to Scottish Nationalism: Jim Sillars’ Journey’, Scottish Affairs 31:2 (2022), pp.233-239.

Rebecca McKee and Jack Pannell, ‘MPs who change party allegiance’, Institute for Government blog, 12 March 2024.

Emma Peplow and Priscilla Pivatto, The Political Lives of Postwar MPs (London: Bloomsbury, 2020).

The House of Lords Act 1999 was the last major reform to membership of the House of Lords; removing the rights of all but 92 hereditary peers to sit in the House. This act was intended to be a ‘first stage’ but since then other attempts to reform the Chamber have stalled. The presence of any hereditary peers in parliament at all has been called ‘undemocratic and indefensible’ by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer [BBC News, 5 September 2024], and the government included a bill in the July 2024 King’s Speech that would remove them entirely [Lords Library, 6 November 2024].

Almost since it passed, the 1999 Act has been criticised as a missed opportunity. Alexandra Kelso has argued that 1997 Labour government – who enjoyed a huge majority in the Commons and considerably popularity – had an ‘irrational fear’ that the Lords would hold up their governmental programme if reform was pursued, and ‘shrank’ from more ambitious measures [Kelso, 2011, p.111]. Subsequently the elections to choose which hereditary peers kept their seats, and to replace members when they died, have been described by Donald Shell as ‘nonsense’ [Shell, 2000, p.300]. However, reforming membership of the Lords is fraught with controversy, and consensus about what the House should look like is hard to reach.

Without understanding the context of the 1999 House of Lords Act the current composition of the chamber indeed seems rather strange. The decision to save 92 hereditary peers was largely due to behind the scenes negotiations between leading Conservative and Labour peers. The back and forth of negotiations is described by the journalist Michael Cockerell in a 2001 article for the Journal of Legislative Studies, written based on interviews Cockerell held for a BBC documentary ‘The Lady and the Lords’. Our own oral history project has interviews with two of the key protagonists of these talks: Ivor, Lord Richard, who was Leader of the Lords from 1997-98, and Lord Cranborne, now the 7^th Marquess of Salisbury, who led the Conservative peers. Their reflections in our archive suggest further insights into the complicated politics around the 1999 Act.

In 1997 the Labour party were elected with a manifesto commitment to reform the House of Lords in a two-stage process. The ‘initial, self-contained reform’ promised to remove ‘the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote […] by statute’ [Labour Party, 1997]. Whilst this was clearly understood as the start of the process, no detail was included on further reforms. This was a significant change from the 1992 Labour manifesto, which had promised a largely elected House of Lords. A reform bill was not introduced in New Labour’s first parliamentary session, which was dominated by other constitutional changes such as devolution in Scotland and Wales.

However, behind the scenes in 1997 and 1998 talks were already underway between the leaders of the two parties in the Lords. In Salisbury’s 2016 interview for our oral history archive, he remembered that after the 1997 landslide he had accepted that Lords reform was coming, and hoped to reach a compromise to secure both stages of reform. He wanted to avoid a situation where hereditary peers were removed (stage one) with no former reform to follow: ‘unless we had some reminder that we still needed stage two, then we’d just have stage one and a purely nominated House’. This was both a matter of principle and of politics, he remembered, as it was easier to unite pro- and anti-reform peers behind the position ‘no stage one without stage two’. In this extract from his interview, Salisbury explained his tactics, as discussed with his then party leader, William Hague:

Salisbury proceeded to disrupt the government’s legislative programme in their first parliamentary session, notably the European Elections Bill, which was later forced through using the powers of the Parliament Act.

On the Labour side, our 2015 interview with Lord Richard also discussed the behind the scenes negotiations. In line with Salisbury’s reflections, the two sides believed they were getting ‘somewhat near a settlement’ on the full reform package in summer 1998:

As Richard mentions, at this point he was sacked as Labour leader in the Lords. Both he and Salisbury later reflected that this must have been because of opposition to an elected upper chamber at the very top of the New Labour government. This testimony suggests that rather than being ‘frightened’ into accepting hereditary peers in a newly-constituted House of Lords, the government were equally resistant to agreeing to an elected chamber, a deal the peers themselves were close to reaching.

With Richard gone, his place in the negotiations was taken by Blair’s close ally, the Lord Chancellor Derry Irvine. Salisbury describes the ‘utterly loopy’ negotiations to agree that 92 hereditary peers would remain: 10% of the hereditary peerage, with 15 further peers to man committees in the ‘interim’ period before further reform, and then adding in the Earl Marshall and Lord Chamberlain.

However, just before this deal was agreed and a bill to reform the Lords included in the 1998 Queen’s Speech, Conservative leader William Hague and a select group of his shadow cabinet rejected the deal. Instead, they wanted Salisbury and the Conservative Lords to continue to resist any reform. In our interview, Salisbury explained why he would not continue to do so. Firstly, he clearly accepted that Lords membership needed reform, but was opposed to a purely nominated chamber. Secondly, and importantly, he thought resisting all reform would be unconstitutional. The amount of opposition the Lords could give to an elected government was (and is still) governed by the terms of the ‘Salisbury convention’. This had been most recently defined by Salisbury’s grandfather, the 5^th Marquess (Conservative leader in the Lords 1942-1957): the Lords would not oppose a government bill if it had appeared in their manifesto. In his interview with us, the 7^th Marquess respected this as ‘grandfather’s convention’, and was not prepared to ignore it. Salisbury had spent a significant part of his childhood living with his grandfather when his own parents were away in Africa, and spoke about him with pride during his interview.

Nevertheless, Salisbury’s next decision to save his deal with Irvine was unorthodox, as he explains in this extract:

What followed was an extraordinary sequence of events where Salisbury dealt directly with his opponents in Number 10, including Blair and his chief of communications Alistair Campbell, to ensure his deal remained whether Hague wanted it or not. Salisbury and Campbell agreed the plan to save the 92 hereditary peers should be introduced as a crossbench amendment to the government’s bill, according to reporting in the Times the following week as an attempt to ‘bounce’ Hague into accepting it.

On the day the crossbench amendment was due to be announced, however, a furious Hague discovered that Salisbury had gone behind his back. Trying to seize the initiative, Hague announced the proposed deal to a shocked House of Commons at Prime Minister’s Questions, accusing Blair of reneging on his promise to remove all hereditary peers and trying to create a Lords full of ‘Tony’s Cronies’. Unfortunately for Hague, however, he had acted without knowing the feelings of Conservative peers. Instead of backing Hague they supported the deal to save 92 hereditary peers: indeed Hague was only able to secure a new Leader in the Lords (Lord Strathclyde, Salisbury’s close ally) and keep his front bench by agreeing that they could vote for the deal. Hague had to back down and ended up harangued on Newsnight over the whole episode.

This proved to be the end of Salisbury’s career in the Lords. Unsurprisingly sacked by Hague, he later retired from the House so as ‘not to cause trouble’ for Strathclyde. In his diary, Alistair Campbell expressed astonishment at Salisbury’s motives:

I still could not fully understand why he would do this – he didn’t know me from Adam, and what he did know he probably didn’t like and yet we had just sat down and agreed a line-by-line plan that he must know would damage his leadership, help us through a difficulty, and … he was going to be implicated. [Campbell, 30 November 1998, p.578]

From our interview these motives seem a lot clearer. At the end of the interview he reflected that he was ‘pleased’ with the outcome even if it was ‘a negative achievement’ as ‘if Blair had been able to go full-bloodedly for a stage one reform plan he might put the thing to bed for the foreseeable future’. Salisbury then laughed as he realised ‘You could say that he did that anyway! 17 years later, or whatever it is’ the Lords remains the same. Instead of being frightened into accepting that hereditary peers remain, the Labour government did create a mostly-nominated chamber.

E.P.

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Further Reading

Alistair Campbell, The Alistair Campbell Diaries, Volume Two: Power and the People, 1997-1999 (London: Arrow, 2001).

Michael Cockerell, ‘The Politics of Second Chamber Reform: A Case Study of the House of Lords and the Passage of the House of Lords Act 1999’, Journal of Legislative Studies 7:1 (2001), 119-134.

Alexandra Kelso, ‘Stages and Muddles: The House of Lords Act 1999’, Parliamentary History 30:1 (2011), 101-113.

Labour Party, New Labour: Because Britain Deserves Better (1997) [Accessed online: http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1997/1997-labour-manifesto.shtml]

Donald Shell, ‘Labour and the House of lords: A Case Study in Constitutional Reform’, Parliamentary Affairs 53:2 (2000), 290-310.

Even if the statues in Parliament Square are not ‘Made of Stone’, as the introductory music to our feature on Matt Chorley’s Radio 5live programme might suggest, the grand figures give an impression of timelessness. However, Parliament Square itself has developed in purpose and layout in the past 150 years, and of course the figures commemorated are complex and intriguing historical actors. I hope I’ve been able to thank on air my Victorian Commons colleagues, in particular Kathryn Rix, for their help in my research, and acknowledge in particular the work of Geoffrey Hicks, whose work on the square I have relied on.

Parliament Square first became a public memorial space in the 1860s, following the designs of Edward Barry, son of Charles, the architect of the rebuilt Palace of Westminster. As Hicks has argued, the initial aim of the Square was an ‘outdoor mausoleum’ and ‘sacred space’ for imperial Britain’s political leaders [Hicks, 165-67]. This was in the context of what historians have termed Victorian ‘Statue Mania’. Throughout the country, as Rix for example has recently discussed in an article describing public statues of politicians in the north and midlands, statues of ‘Great Men’ were erected as inspirational figures and decoration for new public spaces. Historians Terry Wyke and Donald Read have demonstrated the importance of the death of Prime Minister Robert Peel in starting this craze, which all seems rather strange in our more cynical political times.

The first five statues are squarely in this tradition: five prime ministers, all added in the decades after their deaths. First to be moved to the Square was George Canning (1770-1827), who until recently was the Prime Minister with the dubious honour to have been in office for the shortest time period. Nevertheless, our biography describes him as ‘One of the most singular and remarkable of the leading statesmen of his time’ [Stephen Farrell] – all the more fascinating given his relative lack of privilege for a political figure of his time. Canning’s statue, by Sir Richard Westmacott, had a difficult origin, falling off the hoist in the studio and killing an assistant sculptor in 1831, and moved from New Palace Yard in 1867 during works on Westminster ground station, to the area now known as Canning Green.

Next to follow Canning was a very different figure, a pillar of the establishment: Edward Stanley, 14^th Earl Derby (1799-1869). This statue, unveiled by his close political ally Benjamin Disraeli in 1874, has excellent reliefs by John Thomas on the plinth commemorating Derby’s political life. Henry John Temple, 3^rd Viscount Palmerston (1784-1865) by Thomas Woolner was added to the square in 1876, after earlier versions were considered too small. Palmerston’s colourful private life, despite being considered ‘the supreme epitome of Victorian pride, respectability and self-respect’ [Stephen Farrell] featured in our piece. Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850), whose statue was added fourth, also in 1876 (after an earlier version was rejected after MPs), led a political life so complex and interesting it was very difficult to squeeze any of it into 8 minutes! Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) was the last of the Victorian leaders first added to the square, in 1883. The statue’s role as a shrine to Disraeli by the Primrose League, the Conservative grassroots organisation, in the years after his death demonstrated the extent these Victorian politicians were admired.

That, however, all changed with the First World War, as politicians were blamed for the catastrophe and commemoration shifted to honouring the war dead. However the sixth addition, a copy of Augustus Saint-Gardens’ statue of US President Abraham Lincoln in Chicago, was originally due for inclusion in 1914. Almost as soon as he arrived Lincoln left visitors (and Matt!) asking why he was there; the answer to celebrate Anglo-American friendship in the centenary after the end of the war of 1812-14. As Hicks argued, Lincoln was the first figure added to the square to present a different view of Britain to the wider world as its imperial power declined. [Hicks, p.172]

After the Second World War, Parliament Square was reorganised by the architect George Grey Wornum largely into the design we know today. Canning and Lincoln have remained in Canning Green, with the other four organised around a grassy central area. Two spaces were left for new additions, although the Ministry of Works rather felt that the Square was ‘finished.’ [Hicks, pp.174-5] No-one had told Winston Churchill, however, who on his return to government in 1951 proposed a statue to his friend and war cabinet member Jan Smuts (1870-1950). Smuts was probably the most difficult of the individuals on the square to talk about in a short slot on the radio. Reconciling Smuts, the defender of the Commonwealth and liberal world statesman who directly influenced both the League of Nations and the Preamble to the UN Charter, with Smuts as one of the leading figures and chief architects of a racially segregated South Africa is hard to do justice to in a short period of air time. Churchill (1874-1965) himself was added in 1973, apparently having chosen his prime slot close to the Commons in the 1950s (although this story is doubted by many of his biographers). In recent years the wartime leader has also become a controversial and contested figure.

The final four figures in the Square were all added in the 21^st century, in a ‘reinvigorated’ political space, now as much as a place of protest as a ‘sacred’ space to honour parliamentary politics. The final additions were ‘radical politicians that do not proclaim too obviously the conservative nature of the project.’ [Hicks, p.180] Many of their predecessors would also have been shocked to see direct political opponents honoured in the same way they were! Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) and David Lloyd George (1863-1945) were unveiled within a few months of each other in 2007, Mahatma Ghandi (1869-1948) in 2015 and Millicent Fawcett (1847-1929) in 2018. As these figures are all much more familiar to a modern audience, the ‘Made in Stone’ recordings focused more on the campaigns for their commemoration. Mandela, Lloyd George and Fawcett all made it to the square after considerable public pressure; particularly Fawcett as the first, and so far only, woman.

Excitingly, we have more in store for those of you who have enjoyed the ‘Made in Stone’ series so far, as we have recently recorded another seven pieces on statues and memorials all around parliament, from Boudicca to George V. So keep tuning in for more!

E.P.

Catch up with the series so far on BBC Sounds.

Further Reading:

Geoffrey Hicks: ‘Parliament Square: The Making of a Political Space’ Landscapes 16:2 (2015) 164181

Donald Read, Peel and the Victorians

Kathryn Rix, ‘Living in Stone or Marble: The Public Commemoration of Victorian MPs’ in Memory and Modern British Politics: Commemoration, Tradition, Legacy ed. Matthew Roberts (Bloomsbury, 2024), 13970

Kathryn Rix: Parliaments, Politics and People Seminar: Dr Geoff Hicks on ‘Memorialising Britain’s politicians: the politics of Parliament Square’

Terry Wyke, ‘Memorial Mania: Remembering and forgetting Sir Robert Peel’ in People, places and identities: Themes in British social and cultural history, 1700s-1980s eds Alan Kidd and Melanie Tebbutt (MUP, 2017)

Since 2011, the project has interviewed over 250 former members of parliament, creating, in collaboration with the British Library, a unique sound archive of British politics since 1945.

To fill some regional gaps in our collection, the project is specifically looking for volunteer interviewers based in, or able to travel to, either Wales or the North East of England.

Our project could not exist without our fantastic volunteers who, armed with the research we provide, head out to homes and offices of ex-MPs to discuss their childhood memories, inspiration to enter politics, first experiences of Westminster, significant political events and much more.

All volunteers will be provided with expert training in oral history methodology, with our next training session planned for 2-3 June, as well as frequent feedback and advice from the project’s manager, Alfie Steer, and the head of the History of Parliament’s Contemporary History section Dr Emma Peplow. Ideally those who volunteer will undertake at least two interviews a year. Experience in oral history techniques and an interest in modern British politics would be really useful, but are not essential.

Prospective volunteers should get in touch with our project manager, Alfie Steer at asteer@histparl.ac.uk.

A.S.

Since 2012, the History of Parliament has been interviewing former members of the House of Commons in order to capture personal reflections of lives lived in parliament. Including participants from across the three major parties, and ranging in both period of service and length of tenure, findings and insights from this landmark research project have already been showcased in journal articles, a book, and numerous articles for the History of Parliament website. 

Now, for the first time, we have collated clips and excerpts from these interviews into a six-part podcast series. 

Hosted by Dr Emma Peplow, Head of Contemporary British History at the History of Parliament Trust, and Dr Alex Lock, historian and curator at the British Library, this podcast spotlights some of the brilliant interviews within our 200+ strong archive, using never before heard clips and highlighting the unique insights that oral history interviews provides.

These insights cover not only the various milestones of a political career, such as the motivation to get involved in politics, joining a party, finding a seat and encounters with the Whips Office, but also the emotional effect political careers can have on personal lives, as well as the experience of historically underrepresented MPs who have found their way onto the green benches. 

Featuring clips from our interviews with Ann Widdecombe, Michael Heseltine, Chris Smith, Helene Hayman and more, this podcast offers a unique insight into life in Parliament at the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first. What drove these individuals to enter political life? How did they secure their seat or win an election? And what impact did this job have on their personal life? Find out in ‘Tales from the Green Benches: An Oral History of Parliament’. 

Listeners can subscribe in advance and listen to a trailer for the series on our webpage here, or search for ‘Tales from the Green Benches’ wherever you get your podcasts. 

Arthur Latham’s journey to parliament was a relatively conventional one for a Labour politician. Growing up in a working-class family, his father a trade unionist, Latham joined the Labour Party after the 1945 election. A councillor in Romford by 21, he rose through the ranks of local politics on Romford and later Havering Council, eventually becoming leader of the Labour Group. While personally uncomfortable with the self-promotion that came with seeking a parliamentary seat, he was selected to fight the safe Tory seat of Woodford in 1959, given the daunting task of challenging Sir Winston Churchill. In his 2014 History of Parliament oral history interview with Andrea Hertz, Latham describes the strange experience of spending a few hours with Churchill and his wife Clementine, at the election count.

While his political beginnings were similar to many Labour politicians in the post-war era, Latham’s later activism reflected the emergence of new radical energies within the party and British politics more widely. Radical movements in 1960s Britain, typified by the student protests of 1968, the campaign against the American war in Vietnam, and new social movements around feminism, black radicalism and gay rights, frequently came into conflict with Harold Wilson’s Labour government. While some activists sympathetic to these energies left the Labour Party in disillusionment, others formed grassroots pressure groups to challenge the Wilson government from within. One of these activist groups, Socialist Charter, was believed to play a direct role in securing Latham’s victory in the 1969 Paddington North by-election, his campaign reportedly bolstered by the ‘help of 200 to 300 activists’ from the group [Kogan & Kogan, 13]. From then on Latham’s career frequently intersected with the fortunes of the party’s so-called ‘hard left’. His entry into parliament was both directly helped by left-wing activists, and formed an early part of a much wider change in the House of Commons’ factional composition.

Latham’s election was part of  an influx of new left-wing Labour MPs, mostly coalescing around the Tribune Group, a faction within the Parliamentary Labour Party founded in the early 1960s by  supporters of left-wing newspaper Tribune,  which had grown significantly towards the end of the 1970s.  Further, this new generation were considered far more willing to rebel, even if it meant defeating the government on the floor of the Commons. A self-described ‘rebel in the House’ and considered by others ‘a thorn in the side’ of the 1974-79 government, Latham became chairman of the Tribune Group in November 1975, then at the height of its rebelliousness [Telegraph, 22 Dec. 2016].

While Latham was prepared to often be a lonely minority on matters of principle, there were some major disagreements between the government and backbench MPs during his time in Parliament. This was revealed through the whipping system, which privileged the top-down leadership of the government, rather than the collective view of the parliamentary party. This was in complete contrast to Latham’s experience of local government decision-making and was illustrated particularly clearly when it came to parliamentary votes on joining the European Common Market. 

Latham’s frustration reflected the growing disconnect between the Labour government and its backbenches, and anticipated the internal divisions that would plague the party into the 1980s. Yet there were still limits to the Tribune Group’s rebelliousness. Latham describes how the group had to strike a ‘delicate balance’ between exerting pressure on the government without bringing it down entirely. At times, this meant that the Tribune Group was mobilised to support the government rather than rebel against it.

The period not only saw conflict between the Labour government and backbench MPs, but also a ‘crisis of legitimacy’ [Randall, 215] between the party’s parliamentary leadership and its grassroots membership. Once again Latham played a part in this internal conflict.

In June 1973, the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) was formed. Made up largely of former Socialist Charter members, the pressure group was launched in reaction to Harold Wilson’s vetoing of radical policies endorsed by party conference. To ensure similar such flagrant rebuffs of conference sovereignty did not happen again, CLPD advocated a series of major reforms to the party’s constitution, ensuring that the party’s parliamentary elites were more accountable to the grassroots membership. This included making it mandatory for incumbent MPs to go through a re-selection process, and widening the franchise for the election of party leader to include ordinary members and trade unionists, as well as MPs. It was Latham who booked the room in the House of Commons where CLPD met for the first time. In this small act he played an early facilitating role in the formation of a campaign that would eventually achieve major changes in Labour’s constitution, decisively altering the relationship between the party’s grassroots membership and its parliamentary elites.

Latham’s career  reflected a wider reconceptualization of what an MP’s role could be. The new generation of left-wing MPs were not only less deferential to the party leadership, but also ascribed greater importance to activism outside parliament. Latham spent little time in the Commons chamber and made few speeches, describing it in the 2014 interview as ‘not a good investment of time’. Instead, he was ‘extremely busy’ outside, both with constituency work and in supporting extra-parliamentary movements. A lifelong peace activist, Latham was a member of the British Campaign for Peace in Vietnam, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Movement for Colonial Freedom. In 1977 Latham was elected Executive Chair of the Greater London Labour Party. While ostensibly an administrative position, his election again reflected a wider shift to the left in London politics, which culminated in Ken Livingstone’s radical administration on the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 to 1986. Latham returned to local government himself in 1986 and became leader of Havering Council in 1990. He would eventually briefly resign from the Labour Party in response to the Iraq War, once again reflecting a common experience of left-wing disillusionment within the party, and a period of dramatic decline in the party’s membership.

Arthur Latham’s career was therefore frequently a bellwether for the progress of Labour’s ‘hard left’ from the 1960s onwards. His parliamentary career intersected the left’s rise in influence and his later trajectory frequently emulated the experience of other left-wing activists across the country. Studying the political activism of Arthur Latham provides not only an enlightening insight into the experience of a committed left-wing politician, but also reveals the contours of much wider political changes in Britain in the second half of the Twentieth Century.

A.S.

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Further reading
David Kogan and Maurice Kogan, The Battle for the Labour Party second edition (London: Bloomsbury, 2018).

Ken Livingstone, If Voting Changed Anything, They’d Abolish It (London: Collins, 1987).

Hugh Pemberton and Mark Wickham-Jones, ‘Labour’s Lost Grassroots: The Rise and Fall of Party Membership’, British Politics 8:2 (2013), pp.181-206.

Nick Randall, ‘Dissent in the Parliamentary Labour Party, 1945-2015’ in Emannuel Avril and Yann Béliard (eds.), Labour United and Divided from the 1830s to the Present (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018), pp.193-220.

John E. Schwarz, ‘Attempting to Assert the Commons’ Power: Labour Members in the House of Commons, 1974-1979’, Comparative Politics 14:1 (1981), pp.17-29.

Rhiannon Vickers, ‘Harold Wilson, the British Labour Party, and the War in Vietnam’, Journal of Cold War Studies 10:2 (2008), pp.41-70.

With access to the British Library sound archive still unavailable, a full catalogue of our oral history project and details with how to access interviews is available on our website. 

Find more blogs from our oral history project here.

Alfie Steer is a historian of modern and contemporary Britain, currently studying for a DPhil at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on the history of the Labour Left from the end of the miners strike to Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader in 2015. His most recent article was published in Contemporary British History, and has written book reviews for Twentieth Century British History and the English Historical Review. Outside of academia he has written for popular publications such as Tribune.

Alongside the organisers, a distinguished panel of historians and political scientists, Professors Sarah Childs, (University of Edinburgh), Helen McCarthy (University of Cambridge), and Rainbow Murray (Queen Mary University of London) gathered at Portcullis House to reflect on the changes in the lives of women parliamentarians entering parliament in or just before 1997. Drawing on a range of interviews from the History of Parliament’s Oral History Project, the panel questioned whether the increase in women MPs has altered the culture and working practices of parliament. They also reflected on whether the presence of more women at Westminster has made a difference to how women talk about their lives as parliamentarians.

Dr Grace Heaton looks back on the event and what the new cohort of female MPs might be able to take from their predecessors…

In 2018, the Women and Equalities Committee described parliament as ‘a manly place’. In the 100 years since the first woman, Nancy Astor, took her seat in parliament in 1919, women have never been equally represented.

In the 1979 General Election, in which Margaret Thatcher became Britain’s first female Prime Minister, only 3 per cent of all MPs were women. Prophesising the impact more women MPs would have on parliament, in 1987 Labour MP Clare Short argued in her Briefing for MPs that: ‘Increasing women’s representation in parliament is essential if we are to build a House of Commons which more truly represents the whole population. As more women come into the Commons, the culture will change, the agenda of politics will broaden, and the institution itself will be transformed’. That same year, 41 women were elected to parliament and Diane Abbott became the first Black woman to serve as an MP.

During the 1990s, the Labour Party sought to increase the number of female MPs via the controversial practice of All Women Shortlists for candidates chosen to fight the 1997 General Election. Despite a legal challenge temporarily halting the measure (during which two Labour activists accused their party of sexual discrimination), the increase in women candidates combined with a Labour landslide led to a breakthrough. 120 women MPs (18 per cent of all MPs) were elected in 1997 and began to seriously challenge Westminster’s culture. This number has slowly increased in recent years to 22 per cent in the 2010 General Election, and 34 per cent in 2019. In the 2024 General Election a record-breaking number of female MPs were elected, now sitting at just over 40 percent.

As the History of Parliament Trust’s rich Oral History Project demonstrates, experiences of parliamentary life varied hugely. Yet, when discussing their lives, interviewees touched on remarkably similar themes: of what drew them into politics and how they practically entered politics; how they felt about the Chamber and how they experienced the social life and culture of parliament; and how they combined politics with their lives outside parliament. Led by these testimonies, the panel’s discussion was split into three sections: Becoming an MP; Experiences of Parliament; and Balancing Politics and Family Life.

Becoming an MP:

One of the benefits of the life-story approach used by volunteers working with the History of Parliament Trust is that rich insights are gained into the family backgrounds and political heritages of MPs. These formative years often shaped their decisions to enter politics in later life. As Helen McCarthy noted, family members (and often specific relatives) inspired, taught, and encouraged political engagement.

Ann Cryer, a Labour MP for Keighley 1997-2010, for example, recalled her grandmother’s involvement in the women’s suffrage movement; Baroness Angie Bray, a Conservative MP for Acton and Ealing 2010-2015, reflected on being taught how to debate by her father; and Susan Elan Jones, a Labour MP for Clwyd South recalled taking part in her uncle’s election campaign for the Conway constituency in 1979:

From here, the panel reflected on the controversial practice of All Women Shortlists. As you heard above, All Women Shortlists galvanised contradictory responses.

Susan Elan Jones explained that:

‘Until the time of the All Women Shortlists in Wales, Wales had only ever had four female MPs. It was pathetic. […] It took the women-only shortlists to shake things up a bit in Wales’.

In contrast, Ann Taylor, a Labour MP between 1974-79 and 1987-2005, was less convinced by the impact of All Women Shortlists and others like Sylvia Heal, Labour 1990-92; 1997-2010, changed their opinion on All Women Shortlists over time.

Listening to these testimonies, Sarah Childs encouraged a reframing of the way that All Women Shortlists are conceptualised. She noted that whether you like All Women Shortlists or not is irrelevant, the worldwide evidence suggests that quotas systems provide an effective method for increasing female representation and participation in public life.

Experiences of Parliament:

While a striking level of continuity can be deciphered in the importance of familial networks galvanising political interest, experiences of parliament (and particularly the Chamber) varied significantly.

Jackie Ballard, Liberal Democrat MP 1997-2001, highlighted the sexist comments women MPs endured during her time in parliament; other members, like Baroness Angie Bray and Susan Elan Jones did not mention instances of overt misogyny, but rather focused on the gravity and experience of speaking in the Chamber:

Commenting on these clips, McCarthy drew attention to the emotions which underscored these testimonies. Noting that Jackie Ballard’s use of words like ‘loath’ and ‘detest’, and her visceral ‘ugh’ at the end of the clip, provide immersive insights into the experience of being an MP and how difficult it can be. Drawing on her own research, Rainbow Murray made a fascinating comparison to the spatial dynamics of the French parliament. Murray noted that the physical space of the French parliament was overtly unwelcoming to women – reminding the audience that for a long time the only artwork representing women were the erotic images which adorned the walls of the parliamentary bars.

Family and Political Life:

During the final segment, the panel considered the interactions between political and family life. Alongside balancing the demands of a constituency with commitments in Westminster, many female parliamentarians also had to navigate being the primary care giver in their families.

Olga Maitland, Conservative 1992-1997, recalled campaigning for the 1983 election and balancing her familial duties; Sylvia Heal acknowledged the sense of guilt that was also very prominent among female parliamentarians; Ann Taylor, Labour 1974-83; 1987-2005, was adamant that parliament should be a place where women, from whatever familial situation, can easily work:

Reflecting on these testimonies, Rainbow Murray highlighted three coping mechanisms women frequently adopt whilst trying to navigate parliamentary and home life: 1. You don’t get pregnant. 2. You wait until your children have grown to stand as a parliamentary candidate. 3. You delegate childcare – often to other women e.g. your own mother. Murray therefore urged that to address gender inequality in parliament, it is vital to address gender inequality in the home.

As the dust settles on a new parliament, with a record-breaking number of female Members, questions posed by Sarah Childs during the ‘A Manly Place?’ event provide us with much food for thought: Are MPs making a difference? Is the institution changing or are MPs changing? Do we want to change the institution based on what MPs want? When change does happen, which changes stick? And has parliament, in the aftermath of the referendum on Brexit and the pandemic, experienced a ‘remasculinisation’?

After a stimulating discussion, the event closed with the words of Jackie Ballard:

‘Less than a thousand woman have been Members of Parliament. It is an incredibly privileged thing to have done, isn’t it? As a woman, you’ve made, you know, some impact and some mark, and you hope that over generations people are not still sitting here saying how few mothers have been Members of Parliament or something because it’s more commonplace.[…] Being a woman who comes to prominence is important, and I wasn’t a woman from a privileged background, I wasn’t a woman who had a nanny, or a husband even. So, I think it’s important’.

G.H.

Further Reading

Karen Celis and Sarah Childs, Feminist Democratic Representation (Oxford, 2020).

Helen McCarthy, Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood (London, 2020).

Rainbow Murray, ‘Linear Trajectories or Vicious Circles? The Causes and Consquences of Gendered Career Paths in the National Assembly’, Modern and Contemporary France, 18:4 (2010), pp. 445-459.

Emma Peplow and Priscila Privatto, The Political Lives of Postwar MPs: An Oral History of Parliament (London, 2020), Chapter 8.

Today most of the UK’s election candidates will be racing around their constituencies trying to make sure their supporters go to vote. But this is just the start of a very long day which will only end with a returning officer’s declaration in the early hours of the morning. This crucial moment for any MP is often discussed in great detail in our oral history interviews: the moment when, one way or another, their lives changed completely.

Most candidates told us they had a good feel for how the wind was blowing on their patch long before polling day. Conservative David Sumberg explained how in 1997 he had already given up any hope of winning and moved all his belongings out of his constituency house the day before polling! For others, the day might be spent as the figurehead whilst supporters knocked on doors. Labour’s Phyllis Starkey spent election day in 1997 driving around Milton Keynes on the back of a lorry with D:Ream’s Things will only get better played on a loop in a loudspeaker. She was joined at times by party dignitaries: ‘which really scared people rigid when they suddenly heard John Prescott’s voice coming out the loudspeaker.’

Most candidates only arrived at the count when their agent – the person with the legal responsibility for the election campaign – told them to do so. This is often another stage-managed affair, a chance to come in to cheering supporters if all looks promising, or to rally worried troops if not. Labour’s Gordon Banks had played the role of agent too many times to be told what to do himself, however:

Despite the crucial moment coming at the end of the night, campaigns and candidates can often get a really good idea how things have gone as the counting is taking place. Observers for each candidate are allowed to oversee the process and make sure everything is fair – but they are also making swift early judgements about their chances, as Phyllis Starkey explained:

After officials check that the number of votes tally with the numbers of ballot papers issued, all the votes from around the constituency are mixed together before being counted. The next time parties are able to get an indication of how they are doing is by looking at the piles of bundles, of 25 or 50 votes for each candidate, and how each side lines up. When it is going well, as it was for Starkey in 1997, you can ‘actually see how far ahead you are, and you can see that lead growing or shrinking as different boxes come in.’

With this feel for how things are going, candidates and agents are able to give clues to their supporters on their performance. As the former Chair of the Conservative 1922 Committee, Sir Edward du Cann, told us, when he was first elected his agent promised to give him an idea of his progress by either saying ‘I hope you’ve had a cup of tea’ or instead offering to make him one. However, when he called and completely forgot to mention tea at all du Cann was left ‘assuming it was a disaster’! Similarly, Conservative Robert Hayward was able to wink at his supporters to let them know things were going well in 1983, and Gordon Banks described scratching either his left or right ears to pass on news to his activists.

As the night goes on a close race will lead to a very tense atmosphere. At Gordon Banks’ 2005 count he kept a close eye on his rivals in the SNP, with his spirits buoyed as theirs started to lower. David Sumberg watched the national picture in 1992 to see if he would hold on in his seat:

Matthew Morris, now Lord Naseby’s, first elections in 1974 were extremely close and both went to tense recounts. He remembers being told in the February election by a town clerk to make sure his observers insisted bundles of votes were opened during the process. After the first recount he was ahead by just four votes, before the final tally gave him a majority of 179. At times national parties might add to the tension, as Liberal Democrat Jackie Ballard told us when she lost her seat in 2001:

Ballard’s quotation gets to the heart of perhaps the biggest factor for all the candidates – sheer exhaustion! Former Conservative/Lib Dem MP Emma Nicholson described her team all ‘stumbling around like zombies’ and she could ‘barely keep [her] eyes open’ as the count went on.

The emotions intensify as the crucial moment draws nearer. Conservative John Sykes, who expected to lose in 1997, remembered trying extremely hard to keep a brave face:

So there followed four hours of trying to smile through it, trying to make sure there were no bad photographs and trying to make sure that you bore it with grace, bore it as best you could for the sake of your own self-respect and so on.

We do have stories, sadly, of times when not all candidates manage that. For the winners, the overwhelming emotion was joy. Banks told us in 2005 after his acceptance speech his campaign ‘went and partied, quite frankly. Because you’re on an emotional high of – it’s an immense emotional high.’ Winning against the odds in 1992 gave Conservative David Sumberg a real sense of confidence returning to parliament. He even formed a dining club with other Conservatives who held on unexpectedly, complete with a tie. Few extracts from our archive however match this sense of elation from Labour’s Eileen Gordon in 1997:

More memories are sure to be made tonight.

EP

The seminar takes place on 30 April 2024, between 5:30 and 6.30 p.m. It is fully ‘hybrid’, which means you can attend either in-person in London at the IHR, or online via Zoom. Details of how to join the discussion are available here.

In 1945 the experimental social research organisation Mass-Observation studied the general election campaign as it played out in the London constituency of Fulham East. Historians who have made use of this study have tended to draw upon the Mass-Observers’ original conclusions, found in the organisation’s ‘file reports’. Reflecting wider national trends, Fulham East ‘swung to Labour’ in 1945, and these summarised conclusions have been relied upon to better understand the basis for the Labour Party’s success at the election more broadly.

Beyond any issues with the use of Fulham as a ‘representative’ case study, my master’s research showcased the limits of treating Mass-Observation’s 1945 investigation as a neutral, data-gathering exercise. It did so by returning to the original field notes from the investigation, paying attention to the ordering and framing of the questionnaire used by Mass-Observation as part of its investigation, as well as the intersubjective dynamics of the interview encounter, and suggesting how this may have shaped the responses elicited and the subsequent impression garnered of popular political attitudes.

Building on this, my doctoral project seeks to provide a more contingent account of the Labour Party’s relationship with working-class voters in the mid-twentieth century. These new research questions have led me towards a more straightforward reading of this material and the explanations it offers of the basis for Labour support. At the same time, by ‘reading against the grain’ in the field-notes from the 1945 investigation, important new insights can be gained into the basis for Labour’s successful class politics in Fulham East.

Mass-Observation’s investigation of the 1945 general election involved five volunteers attending party-political meetings in Fulham, noting down overheard conversations and carrying out interviews with local voters. My master’s research focused especially on these interview field-notes, and suggested that conclusions of apathy (reached by the Mass-Observers and subsequently reproduced by historians) could instead stem from the alienating, off-putting dynamics of the interview encounter.

Returning to this material as part of my doctoral research has involved taking greater interest in other parts of the investigation, particularly party-political meetings, the recorded speeches and audience reception of Labour politicians (albeit shedding light on the views of a more ‘activist’ demographic). This has also involved a more straightforward reading of the questionnaire replies gathered by the Mass-Observers, for instance paying greater attention to the number of working-class interviewees who rooted their partisanship and support for Labour in the party’s perceived class credentials.

My research has shown how the questionnaire used by Mass-Observation in Fulham in 1945 implicitly assumed a high standard of political engagement. At times, the Mass-Observers appear to have explicitly tested local residents’ political knowledge and awareness of the campaign. The Mass-Observation investigation can therefore be seen as encouraging (even if unintentionally) a particular, exacting set of criteria for potential voters.

Nevertheless, by reading ‘against the grain’ in this material, paying attention to those instances where interviewers expressed (annotated) frustration with recorded responses (‘this only emerged after a great deal of ferreting’), it is possible to detect where interviewees spoke in different terms. In some cases, this involved resisting the high standards implicit within the questionnaire, and instead asserting the appropriate limits of political engagement. In other cases, interviewees could express an alternative idea of politics and the basis for political partisanship, offering a more inclusive model. Whereas the questionnaire privileged factual, terminological knowledge, interviewees repeatedly referenced their (implicitly classed) experience as the basis for their party allegiance.

When placed alongside the Mass-Observers’ recordings of party-political meetings in Fulham, it becomes clear that the Labour Party was aligned with these more inclusive ideas of politics and the basis for political participation and partisanship, rooted in classed experience. This is perhaps best epitomised in the speech at Fulham Town Hall given by the visiting Labour speaker (and prominent national party figure) Ernest Bevin. As part of this speech, Bevin referenced the ‘conditions of the working man today’, including the struggle of the male breadwinner to provide for his family members and dependents, a description that was met with ‘heartfelt hear hears’ by labourers in the audience. In turn, Bevin stated that ‘Labour stands for the common man and it is the language the common man understands’.

It is hard to tell, in these instances, who exactly was mirroring whom. Nevertheless, this example suggests how reading ‘against the grain’ can provide new ways of understanding the significance of the election campaign, and can supplement and enhance the insights gained through a more conventional reading of this material, revealing instances of convergence between popular and party-political ideas which shed fresh light on the basis of Labour’s success among working-class voters in Fulham in 1945.

RG

The seminar takes place on 30 April 2024, between 5:30 and 6.30 p.m. It is fully ‘hybrid’, which means you can attend either in-person in London at the IHR, or online via Zoom. Details of how to join the discussion are available here.

When the HIV/AIDs epidemic arrived in the UK in the early 1980s it was a frightening, confusing time. Little was known about this new disease, other than it appeared to be deadly to all who caught it. As in other countries it spread quickly in certain communities in the UK: haemophiliacs, who relied on blood products, drug users and gay men. The last two groups were already marginalised. As recounted heartbreakingly in the BBC/British Library documentary series based on oral history testimony, Aids: The Unheard Tapes, those living with the disease, and those who loved them, faced discrimination and fear from wider society.

The lack of knowledge about how AIDs spread and how to treat the disease, alongside this marginalisation, made tackling the subject politically a difficult issue. Although homosexuality had been decriminalised in the UK in the 1960s, discrimination against the gay community was widespread and, at times, political debate was homophobic. The MPs we have spoken to as part of our Oral History Project who spoke out about AIDs in Parliament believed other MPs would stay quiet because they could find the whole debate ‘distasteful’, in the words of Labour’s Gavin Strang. This of course made introducing legislation to record and prevent the spread of HIV, as well as support those living with the disease, all the harder.

Some MPs though were determined to address this crucial public health issue. Chris Butler, for example, remembers speaking about HIV in Parliament at a time when its spread felt ‘unstoppable’. Edwina Currie became junior health minister in 1986, partly, in her words, to help front then Health Secretary Norman Fowler’s public campaign on HIV.

The ‘Don’t Die of Ignorance’ government campaign, and Currie’s inappropriate public comments about AIDS, have been criticised then and after as only encouraging the stigma of those suffering with the disease. The image of a tombstone and the apocalyptic tone of the TV advert in particular were seen by many as ‘demonising’ them as the victims of the disease. However, the campaign has also been lauded for sharing better information, its frank language, and in particular for the attempt to reach the entire country. Fowler remembered in a Guardian interview that Margaret Thatcher had wanted a campaign more targeted to specific communities, and with less direct language. This battle, as shown from the archives, was won by Fowler and the Health Department. The advert and information leaflet reached most of the country, made it clear that anyone could catch HIV, and promoted safe sex. Fowler later remembered that one of his main motivations was to prevent attacks on the gay community, arguing that better information about HIV would help undermine discrimination. He has since continued to be involved in campaigning for both the LGBTQ+ community and for those suffering with HIV.

Others out of government also worked hard within parliament to do what they could to stem the epidemic. For example, Gavin Strang introduced a Private Members’ Bill in 1987, the AIDS (Control) Act, which required reporting on numbers of cases across the country. Neil Gerrard joined, and later chaired, the All Party Parliamentary Group on HIV/AIDs because he had friends diagnosed with the disease and others who worked with AIDs patients. He later sat on an Inter-Parliamentary Union working group advising parliaments across the world on HIV policy.

Of course there were others in Parliament deeply affected by the illness. Robert, now Lord, Hayward, was not publicly out at the time but remembered how ‘frightening’ it felt on the gay scene, how ‘awful’ it was to lose good friends to this disease. Chris, now Lord, Smith – the first MP to choose to come out – was diagnosed with HIV in 1988. He chose to keep this information secret at the time. Smith was at first treated with the more experimental AZT, which he believes may have given him enough ‘breathing space’ to be able to receive better therapy later on.

Here he describes how he reacted to his diagnosis:

Lord Smith describes his ‘determination to fit everything in come what may’ kept up his motivation to continue sitting on Labour’s front bench: ‘If I’m not here in 5 years’ time I want to make the most of what I’ve got.’ Even for a MP though, the discrimination around HIV remained. Lord Smith decided much later to make his diagnosis public and to talk about his experiences. He has since featured in campaigns demonstrating that a HIV diagnosis no longer means a death sentence.

EP

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