The Labour Party in Croydon

Labour: fighting for you across Croydon and Sutton

 

Michael Foot

Michael Foot - A TRIBUTE BY MALCOLM WICKS MP

With the passing of Michael Foot, it is truly like an era is over.  For Michael’s life and commitment to our Labour Movement goes back to the 1930s, when he made his name with his denunciation of appeasement by publishing a famous tract, ‘Guilty Men’.  Throughout a great life he was a fierce opponent of fascism and racism.  He was a man of peace with his consistent warnings about the horrors of nuclear war, but he also understood the necessity to stand firm against dictatorship and tyranny. 

I got to know Michael, and his late wife, Jill Craigie, during the Bosnian conflict when some of us in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) formed Labour Friends of Bosnia arguing, to both the Conservative Government, and our own over-cautious Frontbench, the need to stand up to Dr Karadzic and the Serbs who were pounding Sarajevo and were later responsible for the Srebrenica genocide.  The need to oppose tyranny is a lesson that the Left perhaps needs to re-learn today. 

Michael Foot was generous to Croydon and made a number of visits.  When I first stood for election in Sanderstead for a vacant Council seat in the early 80s, Michael, with immense generosity came down to campaign, despite the fight being somewhat hopeless from a Labour perspective.  And yet we had a great campaign and it was very much the start of our Party’s renaissance in Croydon, with new campaigning techniques and renewed energy. 

I last saw Michael when he attended a special meeting of the PLP on 26 January 2009, a meeting held to celebrate his life and work and also that of his contemporary, Jack Jones.  A photograph taken on that occasion is one that I will always treasure.  Michael’s life reminds us that the Party is not simply about detailed policies and programmes, vital though these are, as his time as Secretary of State for Employment illustrates, but that it is also about fundamental values and beliefs in equality, fairness, liberty and the building of a better and peaceful world.  Let’s remember to hold on to these values as we go forward to meet new challenges.