Labour Leftists ditch ex-Minister

Press, 2 March 1982, Page 9

Labour Leftists ditch ex-Minister

NZPA-Reiiter Sheffield Fred Mulley, a former.. British Defence Secretary, has been ’ denied .renomination to Parliamenrt, becoming the most prominent victim of the Left-Right struggle in Britain’s Opposition Labour Party. A local party committee in Sheffield passed over Mr Mulley, their member of Parliament for 21 years, and chose a Left-winger, Richard Caborn, to be the Labour candidate for the next Gen- ; eral, Election due by mid--1984. Renomination was for years virtually an automatic right for British parliamentarians. But Labour changed its party rules a year ago under pressure from Leftists who argued that long-serving members often grew too conservative in their views. Six serving members of Parliament have now been ditched by their local party committee, but none so eminent as Mr Mulley, aged 63, an Oxford-educated lawyer and a strong supporter of Britain’s N.A.T.O. alliance. He served in. Labour governments under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan and was Defence Secretary

from 1976 to 1979. Mr Caborn, aged 37, the .successful challenger, is Sheffields. member of the European'Parliament. He is a fprriier maintenance, fitter and-is a trade-union activist. Renomination was one of the issues of which 25 members of. Parliament have deserted Labour to form the Social Democratic Party. Trading on disenchantment with Labour and the ruling Conservatives, the S.D.P. has won a strong backing from the public, according -to opinion polls and several byelection results. ■ But a poll published in Scotland at the week-end showed that the party has slipped back in the last few weeks in the affluent Glasgow suburb of, Hillhead where a by-election is looming for a vacant parliamentary seat. The S.D.P. candidate for the by-election is a former . Cabinet- Minister, Roy Jenkins, the new party’s most likely choice as its future leader. The poll showed Mr Jenkins had lost an early lead in the popularity ratings and, in a neck-and-neck race, stood i fractionally behind his Com 1 servative Party rival.