Stan Newens (1930-2021) Labour MP & socialist historian
I was sad to learn of the death of Stan Newens last week.
He was a Labour MP (for Epping and then Harlow) and an MEP and in the 1950s a member of the Socialist Review Group, which became in more recent years the Socialist Workers Party.
He never really retired and did a good deal of work on labour and socialist history in his later years.
His Wiki entry is here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Newens
He spoke at an event in 2011 co-organised by the London Socialist Historians Group to mark the life of socialist historian Ray Challinor who like him had been an SRG member in the 1950s and remained a lifelong friend.
http://londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.com/2011/11/stan-newens-on-ray-challinor.html
Newens notes that Challinor told him that he was ‘the most conservative socialist’ he had ever known, which he took in good part.
He was certainly idiosyncratic in his views and while categorised as being on the left that didn’t necessarily cover all of his views.
That though is not to any give ground to the mean spirited and rather unpleasant obituary of him in the Guardian.
His work on the late Rumanian dictator Ceaucescu dates from the early 1970s but it remains difficult to understand why a man with Newens political background could see him as anything but a brutal dictator. I suspect he saw Rumania as part of a third camp, in the orbit of Russia but somewhat at arms-length. As Tony Cliff who he worked with in the 1950s (and he once drove Cliff to Glasgow on the back of his motorbike) would say ‘nothing so romantic’.
Stan Newens had a compelling speaking style-as many socialists who learnt their trade on the stump did- and he carried this into later life. Conversations with Stan were invariably in the form of an argument- but usually a friendly one which ended with a smile.
He will be missed.
Socialist History Society appreciation of Stan Newens:
http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/?p=1125
London Socialist Historians obituary of Stan Newens
http://londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.com/2021/03/stan-newens-1930-2021-socialist-with.html
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