The battle for Bermondsey

by Peter Tatchell

The Battle for Bermondsey. Initially banned as a Labour candidate, Peter Tatchell explains his views on extra-parliamentary action, gay rights and a 'new style' of MP which made him unacceptable to the Labour establishment. Vilified as an extremisit, foreigner, draft dodger, homosexual and traitor, he reveals the full extent of the hate mail, smears and death threats that marked the dirtiest by-election since the war. The tactics used against Peter Tatchell give warning of a new and ugly trend in British politics, making him well placed to understand the forces ranged against the left - and democracy today.

Genres: Politics, LGBT

176 pages, Hardcover

First published October 31, 1983

About the author

Peter Gary Tatchell is an Australian-born British Political campaigner, well known for his work with LGBT social movements, who attracted international notice for his attempted citizen's arrest of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in 1999 and again in 2001.

Reviews

[Ivo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read. Even though it's about a niche topic, it applies to a lot of what we see today, with the gutter press continuing its assault on democracy and the value of a true leftist Labour.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting account of factional struggles within the Labour Party as the neoliberal period begins in Britain. Tatchell gives an account of the history of Labour in Burmondsey as a background to his own experience. He writes also of the vicious campaign against him: from the Tories, the right-wing media, the higher echelons of the Labour Party and indeed the corrupt elements within the Bermondsey Constituency Labour Party itself. Set in a time of splits on the left of British politics which served ultimately to guarantee the electoral triumph of the Tories in an electoral system where a party does not require a majority of votes in the country to gain a majority of seats in Parliament, this book is very much worth reading today as the Labour Party, having elected Jeremy Corbyn its leader largely against the will of its Parliamentarians, again enters a period where its future prospects and the prospects of those it represents may be determined largely by whether or not it can maintain its unity and fight its enemies rather than itself.