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).

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.

The seminar takes place on 11 February 2025, 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 March 1988, on the eve of his final bid for the leadership of the Labour Party, Tony Benn addressed a meeting of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, who he nicknamed his ‘foul-weather friends’. It was an apt descriptor.

While a bewildering number of campaigns and organisations came and went during the Labour left’s three decades of marginalisation within the party (c.1985-2015), one constant was the Campaign Group. Formed by Benn and his small gang of parliamentary supporters in 1982 in the fractious aftermath of the 1981 deputy leadership election, it remains one of the last organisational legacies of Labour’s ‘new left’.

Although for much of the party’s history Labour’s parliamentary left had organised in groups and factions (which included the Socialist League, the Bevanites and the Tribune Group), the Campaign Group saw itself as an entirely new organisation of left-wing MPs. A 1985 leaflet listed its aims as being to provide ‘a socialist identity within parliament’, but also to ‘build a campaigning function within the PLP’ and to ‘forge links with the labour and trade union movement outside’.

Alongside the more immediate factional divisions between Labour’s ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ left in the early 1980s, the Campaign Group’s formation was sparked by a deeper ideological discontent with the established practices of its left-wing predecessors, with the officially autonomous Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and even with the Westminster majoritarian system itself. Rather than being the only arena of political contestation, the Campaign Group saw Westminster as just one part of a wider struggle, and Labour MPs as just one part of a mass movement. This implied a political strategy based on dedicated socialist activity in the Commons, but also the cultivation of a powerful grassroots movement outside it.

Starting with 23 MPs in 1982, the Group’s membership reached a peak of 43 by 1987. Its MPs maintained a busy parliamentary schedule, presenting dozens of early day motions and private members’ bills to the Commons between 1983 and 1985.

In 1988 alone, Tony Benn presented five of the most radical private members’ bills of the era. He used the bills as tools of political education, to demystify parliamentary procedure and make hoped for changes ‘almost tangible’. Before long, the Group had also established itself as the PLP’s most consistent backbench rebels. From 1983 to 2010, the Campaign Group was involved in three-quarters of all Labour parliamentary rebellions.

Beyond the Commons, the Campaign Group held weekly meetings open to external speakers, which included students, trade unionists, feminists, social workers and foreign delegations. From 1984 to 1987, the Group published a book and seven policy pamphlets, and from 1986 produced a monthly newspaper, Campaign Group News, which had a circulation of around 4,000 by 1987.

By that same year, approximately 100 local Campaign Groups had been set up around the country, with some, such as in Scotland, Manchester and Teesside, producing their own publications and organising local conferences. While far removed from power, and treated with explicit hostility by party leader, Neil Kinnock, the Campaign Group appeared a substantial presence in parliamentary and party life. If Benn’s hair’s breadth defeat to Denis Healey in 1981 was the high point of the Labour left’s factional power for the next thirty years, it had not been quite so clear at the time.

By establishing local Groups and forging connections with wider social movements, the Campaign Group demonstrated a major departure from the insular parliamentary focus of its immediate predecessors, most notably the Tribune Group. The common desire to, in Jeremy Corbyn’s words, ‘be there on the picket lines and at the workplace level’ demonstrated a new conception of an MP’s role as a supportive auxiliary to, rather than necessarily the leaders of, political struggles.

Similarly, Tony Benn described the Campaign Group as a ‘resource’ or as ‘paid officials of the labour movement’, rather than as traditional political leaders. Through their privileged position in Parliament, a national profile and easy access to the media, Campaign Group MPs also emphasised their role in providing a voice for otherwise marginal causes. 

As Diane Abbott described it, ‘the thing about being an MP is you’ve got a platform, people listen to you’. Similarly, according to John McDonnell: ‘we campaign within parliament so that the campaigns which are excluded by the Westminster elite and the media get a voice and some recognition’.

Another major departure was clear in the Group’s attitude to the parliamentary system itself. For one, Campaign Group MPs exhibited little deference to the niceties or rituals of parliamentary procedure, and through various acts of protest, both individual and collective, they contributed to a significant uptick of ‘disorderly’ behaviour within the Commons by the 1980s.

More substantively, while key figures of Labour’s ‘old left’, like Aneurin Bevan, had embraced Westminster’s majoritarian system as the essential weapon in the struggle for socialism, the Campaign Group took a more critical view. This was demonstrated in one of its early publications, Parliamentary Democracy and the Labour Movement (1984), which called for the transfer of all Crown prerogatives to the decision of the House of Commons, and even the direct election of Labour Cabinets by an electoral college at the party’s annual conference.

While the transfer of prerogatives, like the power to declare war, constituted a firm assertion of parliamentary supremacy, transferring the power to call elections, or even freely appoint the Cabinet, were also drastic restrictions of Prime Ministerial power and patronage. Previous iterations of the Labour left had been happy to use the Westminster majoritarian system virtually unreformed in the name of socialism. However, the Campaign Group was more circumspect. They were conscious of how the discretionary powers of the executive had often been used to moderate Labour programmes and discipline backbench rebels, as seen in the 1970s, rather than ensure their implementation.

Proposing that party conference elect the Cabinet also underlined a desire to integrate the officially autonomous PLP into the full participatory, decision-making structures of the wider party. This illustrated the integral ‘new left’ belief that Labour’s parliamentarians were but the privileged delegates of a wider mass movement and therefore had to be directly accountable to it.

The Campaign Group’s membership and organisation fluctuated and declined after 1985, riven by political divisions and personality clashes. Nevertheless, a consistent feature of its activity remained a radical scepticism towards Parliament and a far less paternalistic attitude to the role of Labour MPs within it.

This encouraged an innovative and – despite countless setbacks, failures and outright disasters – robust factional strategy. As my paper demonstrates, this strategy helps explain the highly unlikely election of Jeremy Corbyn, one of Benn’s ‘foul-weather friends’, as Labour leader in September 2015.

A.S.

The seminar takes place on 11 February 2025, 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.

Further reading

Jad Adams, Tony Benn: A Biography (London: Biteback, 2011)

Tony Benn, The End of An Era: Diaries 1980-90 (London: Arrow, 1994)

Alan Freeman, The Benn Heresy (London: Pluto, 1982)

Richard Heffernan and Mike Marqusee, Defeat from the Jaws of Victory: Inside Kinnock’s Labour Party (London: Verso, 1992)

David Judge, ‘Disorder in the “Frustration” Parliaments of Thatcherite Britain’, Political Studies 11 (1992), 532-553

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

Nick Randall, ‘Dissent in the Parliamentary Labour Party, 1945-2015’ in Emmanuelle Avril and Yann Béliard (eds.), Labour United and Divided from the 1830s to the Present (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018), 192-220

Patrick Seyd, The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987)

The 2024 general election saw the Green Party of England and Wales enjoy a historic breakthrough, winning four seats and 1.8 million votes. The election was also the end of an era, with Caroline Lucas standing down after fourteen years as the party’s sole representative in the Commons. Yet while Lucas is commonly described as the Green Party’s first Member of Parliament, one other former MP could plausibly claim this historic title: Cynog Dafis, Plaid Cymru MP for Ceredigion and North Pembrokeshire from 1992 to 2000. The reasons why reveal a unique, and largely forgotten moment in Welsh and British, political history.

A veteran of the Welsh nationalist movement, Dafis had played a leading role in the direct-action group Cymdeithas yr laith (the Welsh Language Society) in the 1960s and had stood as the Plaid Cymru candidate for the west Wales constituency of Ceredigion and North Pembrokeshire in 1983 and 1987. Yet alongside his Welsh nationalism Dafis was also an ardent environmentalist, having been inspired by the influential green manifesto Blueprint for Survival (1971). While Plaid Cymru had championed environmental issues in its activism in mostly rural, Welsh-speaking parts of North Wales, and other nationalist or regionalist parties in Europe had already worked closely with Greens, Dafis’s demonstrated a unique degree of political commitment. He enthusiastically followed the rise of Green politics across Western Europe, and had come to identify a clear coalescence between environmentalism’s belief in ‘the decentralisation of power… to relatively self-sufficient communities’ and Plaid Cymru’s emphasis on ‘the small nation, the local community and the safeguarding of cultural and linguistic diversity’ [Dafis, 2005, p.1]. As a result, Dafis was able to act as an ‘ideological bridge’ [Fowler & Jones, 2006, p.320] between environmentalism and Welsh nationalism, which by the 1980s was taking on wider relevance.

In an effort to revive Plaid’s fortunes after the defeat of the 1979 devolution referendum, party leader Dafydd Elis Thomas had pursued a strategy known as the ‘politics of alliance’ [Lynch, 1995, p.202], based on forming connections with both trade unions, particularly the miners during the 1984-5 strike, as well as a variety of new social movements such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), the feminist movement, and green politics. While based largely in the realm of extra-parliamentary campaigning, by the end of the 1980s this strategy had taken on a particular electoral relevance. The 1989 European Parliament elections in Britain had seen the Green Party win an astonishing 15 per cent of the vote (nearly 2.3 million votes), at that time the best performance by any Green Party anywhere in Europe. While the Greens were not able to win any seats, the result appeared to reveal the growing salience of environmental concerns to British voters, prompting all three of the major parties to release policy statements on the issue in the following years.

In Wales, the results appeared both an opportunity, and a threat to Plaid Cymru, with the Greens coming within a percentage point of supplanting them in terms of vote share. To the leaderships of both parties, the result revealed how ‘each party was standing in the way of the other’ [Lynch, 1995, p.204] and sparked a series of negotiations to formulate a Plaid-Green electoral alliance. Green members were invited to Plaid’s 1989 conference and by 1990, Plaid had pledged its commitment to creating a ‘sustainable economy’ [Dafis, 2005, p.2], demonstrating a clear shift toward a more environmentalist outlook. By 1991, both party’s annual conferences had endorsed a formal alliance, but due to the Greens’ decentralised internal structure, this was left largely to the initiative of local parties and activists. In the constituency of Ceredigion and North Pembrokeshire, where Dafis was preparing to stand for parliament for a third time, a uniquely strong political and electoral alliance was established between the local Green and Plaid Cymru parties, later known as ‘Llandysul Accord’. Both parties were to work together in the election campaign, such as organising an event attended by 600 people and addressed by prominent Green politician Jonathon Porritt, while Dafis was to fight the seat on a Plaid-Green joint ticket.

The alliance’s high point came with Dafis’ election victory, rising from fourth place at the last election to beating the incumbent Liberal Democrat Geraint Howels on a ‘massive swing’ of 13.3 per cent [Carter, 1992, p.446]. When Dafis took his seat in the commons, he reportedly ‘took every opportunity to announce the fact of the election of the UK’s first Green Party MP’ [Fowler & Jones, 2006, p.319]. His maiden speech reflected the unique combination of environmentalism and nationalism that made up his political outlook, mentioning both devolution proposals for Wales and the Rio summit on the environment. In parliament, Dafis would employ an influential Green Party member, Victor Anderson, as his researcher, and would support a number of private members bills concerned with classic green issues, such as household energy conservation. Perhaps his most influential legislative contribution was a Road Traffic Reduction bill in March 1996 which, while being unsuccessful, significantly informed a Liberal Democrat bill that became law the next year. 

Ultimately, however, the alliance proved short-lived. While 1992 had finally arrested Plaid Cymru’s electoral decline since the 1970s, and grew its parliamentary representation to four seats, the election had been a bitter disappointment for the Green Party, sparking a new wave of internal conflict which both further sapped its effectiveness, and led to the resignation of several leading figures. Amid this internal division, the influence of Green activists opposed to an alliance with Plaid, and to the ideology of nationalism altogether, grew. Activist opposition, plus the recognition of some major policy differences between the two parties, eventually led to the end of the alliance in April 1995, which was announced with ‘deep regret’ [Fowler & Jones, 2006, p.327] by Ceredigion Green and Plaid Cymru members in a joint press conference. While maintaining good relations with some sections of the Green Party, Dafis would fight the 1997 election as a solely Plaid Cymru candidate, before stepping down from parliament in 2000 to take a seat in the newly formed Welsh Assembly. By that point, Plaid’s new leader Dafydd Wigley had sought to ‘disentangle the party’s political identity’ from the Greens, and to ‘project a more direct, nationalist image’ [Lynch, 1995, p.209].

After enjoying its first taste of election victory in 1992, the Green Party would be forced to wait until 2010, with Caroline Lucas’s dramatic victory in Brighton Pavilion, before it could boast another Member of Parliament, this time on a purely Green ticket. When asked about his historic status while attending the Greens’ 2011 conference, Dafis would describe himself as a ‘hybrid’ MP, and as such ‘didn’t really count’ as Britain’s first Green MP. Graciously, he would grant that title to Lucas [BBC News, 28 February 2011]. Nevertheless, as the Green Party enters a new era as a small, yet significant presence in the Commons, recovering Dafis’ unique political career, and the forgotten Plaid-Green alliance, may help historians place this otherwise novel political situation in the broader context of contemporary British history, an era in which constitutional reform, and ‘post-material’ issues such as climate change and the environment have taken on greater significance.

A.S.

Further reading

John Burchell, ‘Here come the Greens (again): The Green Party in Britain during the 1990s’ Environmental Politics 9:3 (2000), pp.145-150.

Neil Carter, ‘Whatever happened to the environment? The British general election of 1992’, Environmental Politics 1:3 (1992), pp.442-448.

Cynog Dafis, ‘Plaid Cymru and the Greens: A Flash in the Pan or a Lesson for the Future?’, 19^th Annual Lecture of the Welsh Political Archive, National Library of Wales, 4 November 2005 [translated].

Gavin Evans, ‘Hard times for the British Green Party’, Environmental Politics 2:2 (1993), pp.327-333.

Carwyn Fowler and Rhys Jones, ‘Can environmentalism and nationalism be reconciled? The Plaid Cymru/Green Party alliance 1991-95’, Regional & Federal Studies 16:3 (2006), pp.315-331.

Peter Lynch, ‘From red to green: The political strategy of Plaid Cymru in the 1980s and 1990s’, Regional & Federal Studies 5:2 (1995), pp.197-210.

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.

On Monday, 3 February 1961, the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan addressed the South African parliament. Now remembered as the ‘Winds of Change’ speech, Macmillan’s address both acknowledged the growing calls for independence across Britain’s African colonies and signalled the Conservative government’s commitment to a speedy decolonisation process. For a small collection of Conservatives, still firmly committed to British imperialism, Macmillan’s speech was remembered as ‘black Monday’ and proved the catalyst for the formation of one of the party’s most controversial factions: the Monday Club.

The Monday Club defined itself by its opposition to decolonization, and fierce defence of white rule in Southern Africa, particularly Rhodesia. The club’s president, Lord Salisbury, was a well-known imperialist, who had resigned from Macmillan’s government over its perceived liberal direction. Following the Conservatives’ defeat at the 1964 general election, the Monday Club experienced a surge in popularity. Its claims that the party had shifted too far to the left, and that future electoral success relied on a firm articulation of traditional Toryism, appealed to a disillusioned membership. Its opposition to sanctions on Rhodesia following the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) issued by Iain Smith’s government, also gained it some support on the party’s right. By 1970 the club was supported by eighteen Tory MPs. The club produced both a monthly newsletter, a quarterly journal and hundreds of pamphlets, the vast majority in their early years being in defence of the British Empire.  

While the club would remain supportive of Smith’s Rhodesian government, when decolonization became an inevitability by the end of the sixties, the club’s attention shifted to domestic issues, particularly immigration. Its members enthusiastically supported Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. Perhaps its most well-known, and controversial, policy commitment was support for a mass voluntary repatriation of non-white immigrants.

Within the Conservative Party, the Monday Club was an unusual faction for having a comprehensive policy platform. While most remembered for its views on decolonization and immigration, the club was also supportive of a free market economy, with a smaller role for the welfare state, widescale privatisation and lower taxation. This was complemented by a firm law-and-order agenda, particularly support for the death penalty and hostility to trade unions. While the club was mostly perceived as a pressure group, many of its members envisioned it as an intellectual challenge to the Bow Group, which had acted as a reformist think tank for the Conservatives since the 1950s.

Before the Monday Club, most Conservative factions were strictly parliamentary; mostly informal, ad hoc groupings of like-minded MPs. Their activity was almost exclusively limited to parliamentary lobbying, and occasional voting rebellions. The Monday Club, however, appeared more like what Patrick Seyd described as a ‘party within a party’, boasting a mass-membership, branches within local Conservative associations and universities, and a willingness to publicly challenge Conservative politicians. In 1969 the club led a sustained campaign in Surbiton against incumbent Conservative MP Nigel Fisher, largely because of his liberal views on immigration. In one of our oral history interviews, David Hunt described early political battles with Monday Club supporters within the Young Conservatives. In another, Terence Higgins described facing opposition within his local party from ‘a very right-wing organization’ that may have been a branch of the Monday Club.

The Monday Club’s high point came during Edward Heath’s government from 1970-74. The club became a site of activity for many on the party’s right, angered by the government’s lack of action to halt immigration or limit the power of trade unions. By 1971, the club boasted 10,000 members, 30 branches, 55 university and college groups, and the support of 35 MPs, 6 of whom were ministers. However, not long after, a series of damaging bouts of infighting, and scandalous revelations about the club’s infiltration by the National Front, seriously damaged the group’s reputation. An image of extremism proved difficult to shake and placed the club beyond the pale for many.  

The rest of the 1970s and 80s saw the club dogged by infighting. Meanwhile, its controversial positions made it frequently the subject of damaging media coverage. By the 1990s many of its key members had resigned. After the landslide 1997 and 2001 general election defeats, the Conservative Party took steps to detoxify its political brand, challenging perceptions that they were the ‘nasty party’. After being elected leader in 2001, Iain Duncan Smith ordered Conservative MPs to disassociate from the Monday Club. Soon after it was suspended from the party.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given its reputation, few of the former members interviewed for the oral history project say much about the Monday Club. Some have made it clear that their membership was brief and non-committal (Philip Goodhart) or a long time ago (Jill Knight), others have said they joined for networking purposes (Ivan Lawrence) while others appear to have not mentioned it at all (Teddy Taylor). This gap in our archive reveals some of the limitations that oral history can encounter. Like all other historical sources, oral history interviews cannot always tell the whole story.

What then is the legacy of the Monday Club? While it cannot claim a direct influence on Margaret Thatcher’s government, they certainly welcomed many of her policies. Even though the government never went as far as to support the repatriation of immigrants, the British Nationality Act (1981) and Thatcher’s comments on the country being ‘swamped’ by immigration, satisfied many of the club’s members. In fact, the club’s combination of economic liberalism, social conservatism, and authoritarianism when it came to limiting the powers of trade unions, bears a striking resemblance to the ‘free economy and strong state’ ethos that Andrew Gamble later used to characterise Thatcherism. Ironically, it seems that Thatcher’s rise to power may have contributed to the club’s decline. If the government was pursuing policies they endorsed, its role became redundant. Ultimately, though the Monday Club was outside of the party’s mainstream, it formed a part of a wider pressure for the party to shift to the right, which was eventually achieved with Margaret Thatcher’s election.

A.S.

Further reading

Andrew Gamble, The Free Economy and the Strong State: The Politics of Thatcherism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1988).

Lisa Mason, ‘The Development of the Monday Club and Its Contribution to the Conservative Party and the Modern British Right, 1961 to 1990’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wolverhampton, 2004).

Daniel McNeill, ‘“The rivers of Zimbabwe will run red with blood”: Enoch Powell and the Post-Imperial Nostalgia of the Monday Club’, Journal of Southern African Studies 37 (2011), pp.731-745.

Ritchie Ovendale, ‘Macmillan and the Wind of Change in Africa, 1957-1960’, Historical Journal 38 (1995), pp.455-477.

Mark Pitchford, The Conservative Party and the Extreme Right, 1945-1975 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011).

Patrick Seyd, ‘Factionalism within the Conservative Party: The Monday Club’, Government & Opposition 7 (1972), pp.464-487.

Auda-Andre Valerie, ‘Resisting the Conservative Mainstream: On Some Writings of the Monday Club’, Cycnos 19 (2002), pp.7-15.

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.

This year marks thirty years since the Labour Party first introduced all-women’s shortlists (AWS) for parliamentary selections. Its introduction was controversial, both then and now. But by the time the dust had settled on New Labour’s 1997 election landslide, it had transformed the makeup of the House of Commons. Women MPs, once a tiny minority, were suddenly a sizeable, and noticeable presence. Their number soared from 60 in 1992, to 120 in 1997. Of that number, 101 were Labour MPs. According to Meg Russell ‘nothing was more symbolic of the party’s “newness”’ than the ‘massed ranks’ of new women MPs. Some even hoped that such an influx would constitute a ‘critical mass’, that would transform both the political priorities and internal culture of the male-dominated Westminster system. While the results have proven more complex, it is undeniable that AWS facilitated a historic breakthrough for women’s representation in parliament.

Women MPs were a remarkable rarity throughout the twentieth century. Besides a handful of women, the House of Commons was a space dominated by men. This was sometimes noticed by men themselves, as Bruce Grocott remembered:

All-women shortlists therefore offered the opportunity to redress a profound gender imbalance. The mechanism itself was the result of a long and complicated campaign, led by feminist groups such as the Women’s Action Committee and Emily’s List. Their aim was to strengthen the representation of women and ensure gender equality within the party ‘from top to bottom’ (Helen Jackson, Labour). While the campaign had grown throughout the 1980s, it faced opposition from the party leadership. Numbers of women MPs remained low, which radicalised demands by the 1990s. A system of at least one woman on every shortlist proved ineffective and was replaced with a demand for women-only shortlists.

Eventually, the influence of these campaigns, and the twin shocks of electoral defeat and fundamental changes to the nation’s workforce motivated Labour leader John Smith to finally support AWS. But even then, its introduction was far from straightforward. AWS only came about as part of a complex package of internal reforms around the system of ‘One Member One Vote’ in selections. The block votes of trade union delegations at the 1993 party conference proved crucial. Hilary Armstrong explained in her interview how the AWS was introduced as part of these reforms, and the negotiations that took place with trade unions.

While complicated negotiations, and some degree of wheeling-and-dealing, played a key role in ensuring AWS was endorsed at Labour’s party conference in 1993, Armstrong was also clear that the explicit support of the party’s leader played a crucial role.

Throughout our oral history collection, the attitudes to AWS are diverse. Some women MPs were unfazed by being surrounded by men (Llin Golding, Labour), while others only became supporters of AWS upon hearing of other women’s negative experiences. Sylvia Heal, for example, underwent a major change of view on the issue.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, many did not support AWS. While Linda Gilroy experienced ‘very modest’ opposition to AWS in her constituency, things were far more fraught elsewhere. Ann Cryer described how in her constituency; the issue of AWS divided the local party.

In 1995 two male Labour activists took legal action against the party on the grounds of sex discrimination. Ann Cryer described her memories of the case and the anxieties it caused for women already selected under the AWS mechanism.

The success of the legal challenge meant that all-women shortlists were suspended for the 2001 general election. When the number of women MPs once again decreased, the New Labour government introduced the Sexual Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act (2002) which specifically allowed positive discrimination for election candidates. All-women shortlists returned for the 2005 election.

While the legal challenge frustrated the progress of AWS, it obviously did not stop the significant change in parliament’s make-up by 1997. Nevertheless, some women still expressed reservations about AWS. Some feared it would lead to assumptions that women candidates were not on ‘equal terms’ with men, and could only get ahead through preferential treatment (Ann Taylor and Helene Hayman, Labour). Meanwhile, the press’ infamous labelling of the new intake as ‘Blair’s Babes’ further indicated the obstacles female politicians would continue to face. Unsurprisingly, the infamous ‘Blair’s Babes’ nickname was frequently described by our interviewees as patronising and misogynistic (Eileen Gordon, Labour).

Some women MPs who had fought hard for greater female representation were ultimately dissatisfied with the 1997 intake. Mildred Gordon frankly considered them ‘the wrong sort of women’, being mostly middle-class, professional politicians. Ann Cryer described similar concerns over ‘the shoulder-pad brigade’ of professional women ‘coming up from London’ to impose themselves on her constituency. During the controversial vote to cut lone parent benefits in 1997, a measure that was thought to disproportionately affect women, Maria Fyfe expressed her dismay that many of the new women MPs did not vote against it. Alongside these feminist critiques, the tabloid media would also often portray the 1997 intake as uniquely quiescent toward the party leadership. Yet as recognised by Joni Lovenduski and Pippa Norris, high levels of party discipline placed significant constraints on MPs of all parties (and genders), and as such these criticisms were not always proportionate, and often had gendered undertones.

AWS’s introduction and impact has therefore been a great source of controversy in our oral history collection. As a result, historians should be careful not to mark its thirty-year anniversary completely uncritically. What cannot be denied, however, is how transformative it was on the make-up of the House of Commons, and on the lives of many women. As a result of it, hundreds of women enjoyed long political careers that could otherwise have been severely limited. Ann Cryer, just one example of many, went from collecting membership subscriptions and ‘organis[ing] jumble sales’ to being a parliamentary candidate, and soon after, a Member of Parliament.

A.S.

Download ALT text for all audio clips here.

Further reading:

Joni Lovenduski, ‘Gender Politics: A Breakthrough for Women?’, Parliamentary Affairs 50 (1997), pp.708-719.

Joni Lovenduski and Pippa Norris, ‘Westminster Women: the politics of Presence’, Political Studies 51 (2003), pp.84-102.

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

Meg Russell, Building New Labour: The Politics of Party Organisation (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005).

Clare Short, ‘Women and the Labour Party’, Parliamentary Affairs 49 (1996), pp.17-25.

Find more voices of our archive on the British Library.

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.

To mark the fortieth anniversary of the 1983 general election, the History of Parliament Trust held a roundtable event at Portcullis House to share memories of the pivotal election. Alongside historians Robert Saunders and Helen Parr, and former Conservative MP Matthew Parris, Emma Peplow and Priscilla Privato from the trust’s Oral History Project presented a diverse collection of recorded interviews, exploring both the build up to 1983, the campaign itself, and its aftermath.

As the interviews richly capture, the 1983 election was the culmination of multiple profound changes in British politics and society. It consolidated Margaret Thatcher’s once shaky grip on both the Conservative Party and the country; it devastated the divided Labour Party, motivating a major rethink of the party’s image and ideology; and proved yet another false dawn for Liberal (and Social Democratic) hopes of ‘breaking the mould’ of British politics. As Helen Parr argued, while popular memory recalls much of the 1979 election, from Thatcher’s Francis of Assisi speech to Saatchi & Saatchi’s Labour isn’t working posters, it was really 1983 that set the course of British politics for the rest of the twentieth century. Its consequences for Britain’s three major parties remain keenly felt to this day.

Much of the build up to the campaign had been influenced by the Falklands War. Before then, according to Elizabeth Peacock, Thatcher had been ‘in deep trouble’, battling unemployment and an unhappy party. Some opinion polls even put the new SDP-Liberal Alliance on 50% of the vote. But British victory in the South Atlantic appeared to suddenly rejuvenate Thatcher’s public standing, allowing her to portray herself, according to David Steel, ‘as a combination of Britannia and Boudicca.’ For Peacock, Thatcher’s wartime leadership was an indispensable electoral asset.

Thatcher’s reputation and image as a strong, ‘conviction politician’ was able to win her party support even from the most unlikely of voters. Patrick Jenkin’s story of speaking to a voter in Monmouth neatly captures this.  

Yet it wasn’t patriotism alone that handed the Conservatives victory in 1983. The ‘right to buy’ scheme, transforming thousands of council house tenants into homeowners, was identified by Michael Stern as ‘adding to my majority in leaps and bounds’. In that respect, the election appeared not simply a short-term rally to the Conservatives, but potentially a more fundamental realignment of the British electorate. Yet, as Stern also noted, unemployment also remained a key issue. Furthermore, as Robert Saunders pointed out, the Conservatives in 1983 still lost over half a million votes compared to 1979. Far from being a straightforward positive endorsement, Thatcher’s victory owed much to a divided opposition, and the skilled ability to forge a winning electoral coalition on a declining minority share of the vote, and amid historic levels of unemployment. For Matthew Parris, the election also highlighted growing economic divisions throughout the country, not just between communities north and south, but from constituency to constituency.

1983 is also remembered as much as a Labour defeat as a Conservative victory. The result saw Labour reduced to its lowest seat count since 1935 and was nearly beaten to second place in the popular vote. The causes of such a disaster were multiple. Many of the interviewees expressed affection for the party’s leader, Michael Foot, but also doubted his leadership abilities. Ann Taylor described trying to persuade Foot to stand down before the election, while Alan Lee Williams dismissed Foot’s politics as ‘utterly silly’. The party’s shift to the left since the 1970s, including its adoption of a wide-ranging nationalisation programme and a commitment to nuclear disarmament, were considered far too radical to be electable. The decision of the ‘gang of four’ to form the Social Democratic Party in 1981 simply compounded the turmoil within Labour, and as noted by Ken Weetch, did little to aid the party’s electoral appeal.

Many memories recounted revealing moments that signalled Labour’s impending electoral doom. David Owen remembered seeing council house tenants in Plymouth, long considered the bedrock of the Labour vote, switching to the SDP. Labour’s Ted Rowlands remembered old communist miners being exasperated by Labour’s commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament. John Cartwright remembered seeing the left-wing Labour MP Audrey Wise with her head in her hands on election night. It was a feeling no doubt shared by many Labour politicians. On a wider scale, Labour’s defeat was described by Cartwright as a ‘shock to the system’, and one that began the slow process toward the political centre ground and, eventually, electoral success under Tony Blair. Through collecting memories of these individual experiences, the personal ‘shocks to the system’ that played out across the country, the Oral History Project can help historians gain a grassroots perspective to how the defeat affected the outlook of many Labour politicians, and helped determine the party’s future trajectory.

Beyond the wider fortunes of the parties themselves, the interviews provide a candid insight into the day-to-day life of a parliamentary candidate. What shines through frequently is the diversity of experience, and the very personal toll elections could have. The media circus that surrounded the campaign in Plymouth Devonport highlighted the growing centrality of television for British politics. Yet other campaigns, such as Chris Smith’s in Islington, demonstrated the continued importance of old-fashioned door-knocking. Matthew Parris described how he felt less in touch with national politics during the election campaign, dedicating all his attention to the handful of small towns and villages that made up his West Derbyshire constituency. To cut through the noise some, such as Elizabeth Shields, deployed more novel campaign methods.

Inevitably, such variety of experience was most keenly felt regarding the election results themselves. The starkly different emotions experienced by Marion Roe and Bill Pitt illustrates this clearly.

These fascinating memories provide historians with personal accounts of the wide ranging political and social changes the 1983 election signified. From the rejuvenation of Thatcher to the crisis of Labour and the false dawn of the SDP-Liberal Alliance, these candid interviews can add a greater richness and complexity to many of Britain’s well known political narratives. Furthermore, when it comes to the emotional experience of campaigning itself, the magical highs of victory and the crushing lows of defeat, the Oral History Project provides a level of intimate insight not always possible in traditional archive records or electoral data.

A.S.

Find more voices of our archive on the British Library.

Find more blogs from our oral history project here.

Download ALT text for all audio here.

Keep up-to-date with future events on our Eventbrite page.

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.