Eric (Samuel) Heffer - Family and early life, Parliament, Ministerial office, Militant, Last years, Publications

British politician. He worked as a carpenter-joiner until he entered the House of Commons, representing Walton, Liverpool, in 1964. He had joined the Labour Party as a youth, and became Liverpool president (1959–60) and a Liverpool city councillor (1960–6). A traditional Socialist, favouring public ownership, and strongly unilateralist, he distrusted centrist tendencies and had a brief, uncomfortable period as a junior minister (1974–5). He unsuccessfully challenged Roy Hattersley for the deputy leadership in 1988.

Family and early life

Heffer was born in Hertford into a family which was thoroughly working-class. In later life Heffer proudly declared "I am therefore completely proletarian in background". Heffer's family were members of the High church tendency of the Church of England, and Heffer himself was a choirboy in the local church: it was there that Heffer led his first strike at the age of 8, and, he said, first experienced victimization by his employer.

Working life

On leaving school Heffer ran though a series of skilled apprenticeships, including as an electrician, leatherworker and finally a carpenter. However his work allowed him time to study and read in his spare time, and Heffer attended courses run by the Workers' Educational Association and at the National Council of Labour Colleges. Heffer was active first in the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers, and after its merger, in the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT).

Communism

When the Jarrow March passed through Hertford in 1936 Heffer had gone to see them and the experience had a profound effect upon him. In 1939 Heffer joined the Labour Party. However, when the Soviet Union was invaded by Nazi forces in 1941, Heffer resigned from Labour and joined the Communist Party of Great Britain; In the Liverpool Communist Party, Heffer met his future wife Doris. While Communism was attractive to Heffer as an expression of working-class consciousness, he was not attracted to the party's intense control over its members, and was not inclined to defer to the party's dictates. when in 1948 he led an unofficial carpenters' strike against the party's wishes, the Communist Party expelled him and he rejoined the Labour Party within six months. The Communist Party tried to persuade Doris Heffer to leave her husband in order to keep her membership.

Socialism

After the war Heffer briefly lived in Hertford again with his parents, and fought as a Communist candidate for Hertford Urban District Council in 1946, but was defeated. Although from the south of England, Heffer grew to love his adopted city and supported Everton F.C.. This group was a compromise: while it insisted that it itself was not a revolutionary political party, it simultaneously said that there was a need for such a party, and actively rejected the Labour Party. However, Heffer had decided by 1956 to rejoin the Labour Party.

Liverpool

His activities led to Heffer becoming known through Liverpool where he served on the Executive of the Trades Council; The Trades Council was a local association of trade unions, and as such Heffer helped mediate and end an unofficial strike of seamen in 1960. Heffer made a contribution to a book, The Agreeable Autocracies, which was published in 1961.

Parliament

In 1963 Heffer was unexpectedly selected to fight the Liverpool Walton constituency for the Labour Party, when the right-wing Labour establishment was expecting its preferred candidate to win. The previously Conservative-held constituency went to Heffer on a large swing in the 1964 general election, as did a number of other Liverpool seats. There was never any doubt that Heffer would ally with the left in the Parliamentary Labour Party, and he campaigned in 1965 for early moves to nationalise the docks, where he knew from his experience on Liverpool Trades Council that dockers were employed on highly disadvantageous terms that effectively prevented trade unions forming. Also in 1965 Heffer protested outside the United States embassy against the use of napalm and gas in the Vietnam war, and in Parliament against the diplomatic support given by the government.

Doris Heffer served jointly as her husband's secretary, and secretary to fellow Labour MP Norman Buchan. She often accompanied him to speaking engagements where they made an odd couple: Heffer was both tall and heavily built, while his wife was only 4'6" tall. Heffer made a good-humoured complaint when political journalist Andrew Roth described Doris as 'tiny', insisting that she was actually 'petite'. According to the diaries of Giles Radice, Doris Heffer would sit in the front row of the audience when Heffer was speaking, saying "nonsense, Eric" if he said something with which she disagreed.

Wilson's government

After winning re-election with a 5,000 majority in the 1966 general election, Heffer began to make his mark on economic policy. Heffer regarded unemployment as the worst catastrophe in running the economy and often demanded nationalisation of firms which threatened mass redundancies. In August 1967, Wilson, who recognised his abilities, asked Heffer to take a junior post at the Ministry of Technology under Tony Benn. Heffer refused, citing his opposition to government economic policy, and demanded the resignation of James Callaghan as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

At this time, Heffer was a strong proponent of British membership of the EEC. At the 1967 Labour Party conference, Heffer argued for Britain in Europe to build up a third force in the world which would stand up to the USA and the Soviet Union.

In February 1968 Heffer was one of the Labour MPs to rebel against the government's decision to withdraw British passports from the Kenyan Asians who were arriving at Heathrow Airport in increasing numbers, fleeing persecution in Kenya. On two of the issues which divided the Labour Party at the time, Heffer took the side of the rebels: he rejected the proposals for reform of the House of Lords as too weak, preferring fundamental reform or preferably abolition, and he worked to change proposals in Barbara Castle's trade union White paper In Place of Strife (a cabinet rebellion later forced the government to abandon it completely).

Opposing Heath

As a strong opponent of the government's economic policy, Heffer was invited to submit an article to a Guardian book endorsing the re-election of a Labour government in the 1970 general election as a counter to an article by a Labour loyalist. Perhaps as a consequence of his identification with the left, Heffer had only a small swing against him in the election.

Heffer's vote in Shadow Cabinet elections rose in 1971 when he tied with Castle in 15th place. While Heffer could work with Barbara Castle, she was moved in a reshuffle in 1972 and replaced by Reg Prentice who was already beginning the move across the political spectrum which would see him join the Conservative Party in 1977. Prentice's refusal to pledge support to five dockers imprisoned under the Industrial Relations Act appalled Heffer who considered resignation. When in February 1973 it became clear that Prentice had more leadership support, Heffer resigned (refusing an offer of another post).

Heffer had revised his opinions on the EEC in 1970, deciding that the spending on the Common Agriculture Policy was excessive and too big a burden on the budget.

Ministerial office

Harold Wilson was again in office in March 1974 and invited Heffer to be Minister of State at the Department of Industry under Tony Benn. Heffer accepted the offer, while remaining concerned that he would be cocooned in his office and lose his links with the wider Labour movement outside. Heffer received many minutes from Wilson asking him to follow government policy in speeches, such that he minuted Wilson to tell him not to send them.

Heffer worked together with Benn to try to establish the National Enterprise Board, which would provide industry with investment funding and have the ability to take failing firms into public ownership. Heffer was angry at this rule and wanted to resign. During the referendum, Heffer was one of the best speakers for the No campaign, although he had a tendency to speculate about the issue - claiming that the EEC would reintroduce conscription. As a backbencher Heffer campaigned against the change and for more investment in industry. Heffer again became known as one of the leading left-wing Labour backbenchers who frequently voted against the government.

Despite Heffer's friendship with Tony Benn, he voted for Michael Foot in the Labour leadership election of 1976.

Heffer was opposed to the government's proposals for devolution to Scotland and Wales. Heffer was upset about the pact and started a motion to call a special meeting of the National Executive Committee (the Prime Minister, James Callaghan, forbade Ministers to sign it).

NEC member

Increasingly Heffer began to use his position on the Labour Party NEC as the base of his political action. He began a specific campaign to nationalise the building construction industry in the National Construction Corporation, and raised the issue at the 1977 Labour Party conference and on the TUC-Labour Party Liaison Committee, where Callaghan vetoed any consideration of the idea by government. In intra-party matters, Heffer opposed taking action against the Militant tendency after a report by the party's national agent Reg Underhill raised concerns over its activities. Heffer's constituency of Walton was one of the strongest areas of Militant but Heffer believed that Trotskyites within the Labour Party could be countered by political arguments. He recommended that local parties hold political education events to explain democratic socialism to the Militant-dominated Labour Party Young Socialists.

In the late 1970s Heffer fought to change government policy to try to reduce unemployment, and he opposed the continuation of a pay policy which caused the strikes of the Winter of Discontent. Heffer was one of those who wanted abolition of the House of Lords in the manifesto, a policy vetoed by James Callaghan.

After Labour lost the election, Heffer ran for the Shadow Cabinet again and finished as the runner-up. He joined the campaign of the left to change the democratic structure of the Labour Party to give more power to those bodies such as party conference where the left was strong. Heffer did endorse the policy of forcing Labour Members of Parliament to seek reselection from their constituency parties, although he wanted the vote to involve all members rather than the 'General Management Committee' which comprised only activists.

Would-be leadership candidate

The most important issue for the left in the early 1980s was to change the system of election of the Leader of the Labour Party, which had until then been chosen solely by Labour MPs. At the 1980 Labour Party conference a procedural motion to allow the change to be made without delay was narrowly carried after Heffer argued for it, but all proposals for balancing the composition of the electoral college were defeated and the issue was deferred until a special conference. Heffer regarded such an election as illegitimate and moved to suspend it until the new system was agreed, but the Parliamentary Labour Party rejected it. Due to a resignation, Heffer was briefly promoted to be a member of the Shadow Cabinet in October-November 1980. Foot made Heffer spokesman on Europe and Community Affairs from November.

Militant

Concern about the Militant tendency led Reg Underhill, whose 1975 report had been dismissed by Heffer, to issue a revised version in 1980. This report made it clear that most party institutions in Liverpool, especially in Heffer's constituency, were now under Militant control. Heffer compared the report to the propaganda of Joseph Goebbels, but he knew that Militant was powerful: when Heffer considered running against Denis Healey for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party under the new electoral college system in 1981, his constituency party prevented him.

Heffer was elected to the Shadow Cabinet in 1981. While he was a strong supporter of the left, Heffer accepted the need to preserve party unity. Heffer's attempts to mediate between the Bermondsey Party and Foot were regarded as 'paternalist' by Tatchell and his local supporters. Heffer also joined with Foot and Denis Healey in an NEC motion calling for negotiations with the United Nations Secretary-General after the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands on April 28, 1982, in opposition to a motion from Tony Benn calling for a ceasefire and withdrawal of the British taskforce.

In June 1982 the NEC discussed Militant again, with Heffer proposing that all members of the Labour Party subscribe to a 'statement of democratic socialist principles' which was defeated by 22 votes to 5. This included Heffer, who had been chairman of the powerful 'Organization Sub-Committee' (usually known as Org Sub). The five members of Militant's editorial board were expelled in February 1983 despite Heffer's motion to have a further investigation. Michael Foot resigned the leadership immediately afterwards, and with Tony Benn ineligible because of his own defeat, Heffer stood for the leadership as the candidate of the far left. Heffer was also Chairman of the Labour Party from the end of the 1983 conference, a position which conveyed no authority but recognised his seniority.

However, with a Militant-dominated Labour council in Liverpool having been elected in 1983, Heffer found increasing trouble in his constituency. Heffer supported the council in its demands of government and after a series of meetings with the Secretary of State for the Environment Patrick Jenkin, the government eventually gave way and allowed practically all of the budget.

In November 1984 Heffer did not win re-election to the Shadow Cabinet and left the Labour front bench.

On October 1 Neil Kinnock spoke at the Labour Party conference and denounced (without identifying Liverpool) the actions of the council. Heffer was appalled at Kinnock's actions and walked off the platform in protest. This action was capable of misinterpretation: Heffer was not necessarily supportive of the council's actions, but felt that Kinnock was insulting the whole City, and also that he as the senior Liverpool MP ought to have been told in advance. Heffer's autobiography has been taken by some reviewers to show a personal dislike of Kinnock.

On March 27, 1986 the leading members of the Liverpool Labour Party were brought before the National Executive where their expulsion was being proposed. Heffer joined a walk-out by members of the left which rendered the meeting inquorate. His reluctance to take action against Militant led to Heffer losing his position on the Labour Party National Executive at the 1986 conference, a loss which Heffer took personally.

Last years

Heffer's constituency had been becoming increasingly safe for him over the years and at the 1987 election he had the largest absolute Labour vote in the country and a rock-solid 23,000 majority. Neil Kinnock's decision to review the policy of the Labour Party after the election, which was a clear prelude to dropping some of the more left-wing policies, led him to urge the left in the Socialist Campaign Group to fight the Leadership and Deputy Leadership in 1988. Tony Benn was chosen to challenge Kinnock as Leader, while Heffer opposed Roy Hattersley for the Deputy Leadership. Neither had any realistic hope of winning, and Heffer eventually won only 9.483% of the vote.

In 1990 Heffer announced that he would not fight the next election. When Parliament was recalled to debate the invasion of Kuwait, Heffer made what he knew would be his last speech in the House of Commons to urge the United Kingdom not to go to war.

Publications

Heffer was a bibliophile whose collection of 12,000 books was much more than his small house would normally accommodate. Labour's Future - Socialist or SDP Mark 2? (Verso, 1986, ISBN 0-86091-876-9): Heffer's concern over Neil Kinnock's reforms showed in this early book. Faith in Politics: Which Way Should Christians Vote? (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1987, ISBN 0-281-04299-3): Heffer contributed a Labour essay to go with contributions from John Gummer for the Conservatives and Alan Beith for the SDP-Liberal Alliance.