Eric Samuel Heffer (12 January 192227 May 1991) was a British socialist politician. He was Labour Member of Parliament for Liverpool Walton from 1964 until his death. Due to his experience as a professional joiner, he made a speciality of the construction industry and its employment practices, but was also concerned with trade union issues in general. He changed his view on the European Economic Community from being an outspoken supporter to an outspoken opponent, and served a brief period in government in the mid-1970s. His later career was dominated by his contribution to debates within the Labour Party and he defended the Liverpool City Council.
Family and early life
Heffer was born in Hertford into a working-class family. His grandfather was a bricklayer and later a railway signalman, and his father was a boot-maker and repairer, although he owned his own business. 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 eight, and, he said, first experienced victimisation by his employer. Despite growing up in the 1930s, his family did not experience much of the economic privations common in other parts of the country. Typically for a working-class boy he attended school at Longmore Senior School, Hertford, only until the age of 14.
Working life
On leaving school Heffer ran through a series of skilled apprenticeships, including as an electrician, leatherworker and finally a carpenter. He learnt the trade of a joiner, and worked on building sites from the age of 16. This was a skilled trade and when building work was much in demand, he could earn a good wage; but when there were difficulties in the trade, work would dry up. 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 in the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers (ASW). During World War II, he served in the Royal Air Force in a maintenance unit at Fazakerley near Liverpool.
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. The family often discussed politics at home and he saw his political convictions, support for trade unionism and his religious convictions as part of the same analysis of the world. 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; he said that "To me, Stalin was the greatest of men". 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. He was a shop steward for his union; 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 choose between her husband and the party. She refused and allowed her membership to expire. 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. He supported Benn when Benn challenged Healey.
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. In December 1981 he attempted to solve the problem of Michael Foot's denunciation of Peter Tatchell (who had been selected as Labour candidate for Bermondsey) by holding a quick enquiry, but this attempt failed when Foot loyalists passed a motion to refuse Tatchell endorsement. 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 following the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands on 28 April 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. At the 1982 Labour Party conference the right-wing won back control of the NEC, and at its first meeting the left-wing were voted out of all their chairmanships in a coup organised by John Golding. This included Heffer, who had been chairman of the powerful 'Organisation Sub-Committee' (usually known as Org Sub). The change allowed the right to begin to take action against Militant, membership of which was declared incompatible with party membership. The five members of Militant's editorial board were expelled in February 1983 despite Heffer's motion to have a further investigation.
Candidate for leader
The 1983 election was a disaster for Labour which lost a substantial number of votes. 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 'hard left' in the election. He received minimal support among the trade unions and constituency parties, and came third among Labour MPs, obtaining in all 6.3% of the electoral college. Neil Kinnock appointed him as Shadow Minister for the Construction Industry, noting his long experience in the area. 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. The Liverpool Labour Party adopted Militant's policy of a 'deficit budget'. This included no cuts to jobs and services, and no rent and rates increases higher than inflation, and a promise to increase services and confront central government with the £270 million stolen, it claimed, in grants from the city since the Conservatives came to power in 1979. It was voted into office by a landslide. The administration produced a financial crisis, since the budget, set in April by the outgoing Tory-Liberal coalition, included unallocated cuts of £6 million, including 1000 job losses, which the administration cancelled, and an extra 1000 jobs had been promised instead. When the council met on 29 March 1984 it was told clearly that the Militant proposed 'deficit budget' contained an illegal £30 million deficit, but no alternative could get a majority and it went through. All but seven Labour councillors stood by the budget, and 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. He said that he took a principled stance not to take any front bench post unless elected to it.
Kinnock takes action
Liverpool's financial confrontation continued in 1985 when it eventually set another 'deficit budget'. This time the government would not help, and Militant's attempt to get the council's workforce to strike against the Thatcher government was narrowly defeated in a ballot. By September the council was almost out of cash and applied to the new Environment Secretary (Kenneth Baker) for a loan of £25 million. In a desperate attempt to avoid bankruptcy, on 27 September the council issued 90-day redundancy notices to its entire workforce, using a fleet of taxis to deliver them.
On 1 October 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 fully supportive of the council's actions, but not a Militant member, and 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 most reviewers to illustrate his "known dislike" for Kinnock. One sixth of the book is devoted to expressing his views that Kinnock's "betrayal of socialism" led to "a rigid party discipline and the expulsion of Militant supporters".
Heffer's views are most clearly expressed in a letter he sent to Labour Party general secretary Larry Whitty at the time of the 1986 inquiry into the Liverpool District Labour Party:
On 27 March 1986 the leading members of the Liverpool Labour Party were brought before the National Executive where their expulsion was being proposed. Heffer had accompanied Derek Hatton during his NEC hearing regarding the Liverpool District Labour Party. He joined a walk-out by members of the left which rendered the meeting inquorate. At later meetings he voted against expelling Militant members. His refusal to support those taking 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, and indicated the changed nature of the Labour Party, which Heffer anticipated in his letter to Whitty in 1986. The 47 Labour councillors who stood behind the deficit budget strategy were removed from office in 1987 and surcharged £106,000, with costs of £242,000, which they raised through donations from the trade unions and Labour Party members.
Last years
Heffer's constituency had become 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 and John Prescott (from the Tribune group) opposed Roy Hattersley for the Deputy Leadership. Neither had any realistic hope of winning, and Heffer eventually won only 9.483% of the vote.
On 24 November 1989 Heffer announced that he would not fight the next election. The decision was prompted by the fact that he had been diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. He suffered a long decline during which he devoted himself to writing. When Parliament was recalled to debate the invasion of Kuwait in September 1990, 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. His gaunt and white appearance showed how ill he was. In January 1991 he attended the House of Commons to vote against the Gulf War in a wheelchair, when John Major crossed the floor to shake his hand. On 27 March 1991 he was awarded the freedom of the city of Liverpool, but as he was too ill to travel there, he received it at Westminster. His close friend Tony Benn attended the ceremony along with Dennis Skinner and speaker Bernard Weatherill. A letter was read out paying tribute to Heffer from John Major.
Two months later, on 27 May, Heffer died at his home in London, aged 69. Although he clashed on several occasions with Margaret Thatcher, they mutually respected each other personally, and she wrote a letter of condolence to Heffer's widow when he died. She also attended his memorial service held on 10 July 1991. Other notable names who attended included Neil Hamilton, Jonathan Aitken, Geoffrey Howe, James Molyneaux, Ian Paisley, Alan Beith, John Biffen, Patrick Mayhew, John Smith and Tony Benn, who paid a personal tribute.
Publications
Heffer was a bibliophile whose collection of 12,000 books was much more than his small house would normally accommodate. He also wrote prodigiously. His publications include:
- The Class Struggle in Parliament: A Socialist View of Industrial Relations (Gollancz, 1973, ): An analysis of the way trade union issues are handled by Parliament.
- Towards Democratic Socialism (Institute for Workers Control, 1981): a policy pamphlet.
- Labour's Future – Socialist or SDP Mark 2? (Verso, 1986, ): Heffer's concern over Neil Kinnock's reforms showed in this early book. The terms in which Heffer posed the question in its title clearly indicated his preference for the former option.
- Faith in Politics: Which Way Should Christians Vote? (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1987, ): Heffer contributed a Labour essay to go with contributions from John Gummer for the Conservatives and Alan Beith for the SDP-Liberal Alliance.
- Why I Am a Christian (Spire, 1991, )
- Never a Yes Man: The Life and Politics of an Adopted Liverpudlian (Verso Books, 1991, ): his posthumously published autobiography.
In satire
Like many politicians, Heffer was a target for satirists who would highlight his left-wing attitude. He was especially targeted in the satirical strip Battle for Britain which ran in the magazine Private Eye between 1983 and 1987 — Margaret Thatcher's second term in office as Prime Minister. Heffer appears in the majority of the strips, his "cruel Cockney humour" being described as lowering morale on his side, especially when directed at Neil Kinnock.
Legacy
In 2019, Liverpool Walton Constituency Labour Party launched the annual Eric Heffer Memorial Lecture to pay tribute to Heffer's legacy and explore how his ideas of internationalist, democratic socialism can be applied today. The first lecture, delivered by Heffer's successor as Liverpool Walton MP, Dan Carden, was published in Tribune.