by Eliot Henderson
While researching the Southwark and Lambeth Labour parties of the 1970s and 1980s, I was struck by the importance of that generation of activists’ contribution to British political history. Dismissed as the ‘loony left’ by the media at the time, today the political priorities of those activists are firmly entrenched as mainstream vote winners: equal rights and representation for women, ethnic minorities, young people and the LGBT community. My findings illuminate how much public attitudes have changed in the last thirty years thanks to the interventions of those activists in the 1970s and 1980s, and help to challenge the assumption that the Labour party needs to warmly embrace neo-liberalism and pander to the popular press to win elections.
The new urban left that emerged in Lambeth and Southwark in the 1970s were political graduates of the social movements of the late 1960s and 1970s: CND members, anti-apartheid activists, feminists, Vietnam war protesters and racial equality campaigners. Events in Southwark and Lambeth in the 1980s highlight the beginning of a process that could hold the key to a Labour majority in 2015: the combination of Labour’s traditional politics of class with one of race, gender and sexuality – an old and a new politics of identity – to construct a new, inclusive political base for the party.
In Lambeth, this new urban left coordinated a vibrant local and national opposition to a Conservative cuts agenda under the leadership of the controversial but charismatic council leader, Ted Knight. Policies targeting inequality, poverty, racism and sexism through investment and positive discrimination united the large immigrant communities in the centre of the borough with the predominantly white working-class north, along with some sections of more affluent Norwood and Dulwich to the south. With no support from the Labour party leadership and the intense scrutiny of an antagonistic press to deal with, the rate-capping struggle of the 1980s was a rough and ready affair for the Lambeth left. One council meeting in July 1985 even had to be adjourned for 20 minutes after Conservative councillor “Dicky” Bird put Labour councillor Terry Rich in a headlock. Yet despite the overwhelmingly negative publicity, Lambeth residents nonetheless voted to increase the number of Labour councillors from 32 to 40 in the local elections of 1986, proving that a manifesto based on concepts like social justice, investment in deprived areas and positive action to end discrimination and redress inequality could unite voters in a diverse constituency.
Likewise, in Southwark in the late 1970s, the dynamism of the new urban left transformed the local party, which had grown lifeless in the hands of the so-called ‘Bermondsey Mafia’. The Labour MP for Bermondsey between 1950 and 1982 was Bob Mellish, a former dock worker and trade unionist. Mellish had been Labour Chief Whip between 1969 and 1976 and was firmly on the ‘traditional’, working-class right-wing of the party, governing the constituency like a personal fiefdom, with the help of John O’Grady, who led Southwark Council between 1968 and 1982. Allegations of corruption were widespread, particularly in the allocation of council houses and land earmarked for development, and it was under Mellish and O’Grady’s stewardship that Elephant & Castle was graced with its shopping centre, underpasses and traffic. By the early 1980s, Mellish had lost support both in the constituency Labour party and the wider Bermondsey electorate. Left-wing candidates, led by Peter Tatchell, were elected into key positions and council seats, bringing with them a fresh approach to grass-roots community activism.
Incensed by the growing influence of Tatchell and the new urban left, Mellish resigned his seat in November 1982, triggering a by-election to be held early in 1983. Tatchell was selected as the Labour candidate, and the traditional wing of the local party splintered off, establishing the ‘Real Bermondsey Labour’ party with John O’Grady as their candidate. The abuse that Tatchell sustained at the hands of the popular press and his political opponents was astonishing. The Sun led the charge, with a stream of homophobic articles referencing Tatchell’s sexuality and his work campaigning for LGBT rights. Towards the end of the campaign the Sun ran an article which argued that ‘the official Labour candidate, Peter Tatchell, is a boy dressed in the fashionable clothes of a boy – yet trying to present himself to local voters as a man’. SDP Liberal Alliance campaigners wore lapel stickers emblazoned with the words ‘I’ve been kissed by Peter Tatchell’, and the SDP Liberal Alliance leaflet Focus referred to Simon Hughes as ‘a straight choice’. Somewhat bizarrely, O’Grady took to singing homophobic ditties from the back of a horse and trap as part of his campaign.
Tatchell was not defeated in the byelection because his political priorities were unpopular. In fact, despite the hostility that he faced, Tatchell outpolled O’Grady, the candidate representing continuity, by more than three votes to one, while the eventual winner, Simon Hughes, bore a surprising resemblance Tatchell, both personally and politically. As a young, single barrister, he too broke the mould of the ‘traditional’ Bermondsey politician, and was a strong advocate of socially progressive, inclusive grass-roots community activism. In an interesting twist, Hughes came out as bi-sexual after the Sun threatened to ‘out’ him in 2006. More interesting still is Tatchell’s claim that Mellish, his old adversary, approached him with repeated and sincere sexual propositions.
At last week’s PMQs, the image of an entirely male, white, middle-aged, predominantly public school educated government front bench highlighted a significant problem for the Conservatives: they simply do not represent modern Britain. It is a problem that, until it is addressed, may well prevent them from forming a majority government. Perhaps, on reflection, they wish that they had paid a little more attention to the ‘loony left’ after all.
Eliot Henderson studied modern British political history and is currently completing a graduate law degree. He lives in Lambeth.
