Eric Samuel Heffer (12 January 192227 May 1991) was a British Labour Party 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.Tam Dalyell Obituary: Doris Heffer, The Independent, 19 January 2011 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.
Socialism Following the war Heffer briefly lived in Hertford again with his parents, and sought election as a Communist candidate for Hertford Urban District Council in 1946, but was defeated. He then settled in Liverpool, where there was a strong working-class community and within it a large group of left-wing workers waiting to be organised. Heffer grew to love his adopted city and supported Everton F.C. He responded to the demand for a left-wing political organisation in 1954 by linking with a group led by Harry McShane (from Glasgow) and the Militant Socialist Group from London to establish the 'Federation of Marxist Groups' (later renamed the 'Socialist Workers Federation') which had a policy of syndicalism. This group was a compromise: while it insisted that it itself was not a revolutionary political party, it simultaneously said that there was a need for such a party, and actively rejected the Labour Party. However, Heffer had decided by 1956 to rejoin the Labour Party.
Liverpool His activities led to Heffer's becoming known throughout Liverpool where he served on the Executive of the Trades Council; he was its Vice President in 1958, President in 1959 and again in 1964. The Trades Council was a local association of trade unions, and as such Heffer helped mediate and end an unofficial strike of seamen in 1960. He was also elected as a Liverpool City Councillor for Pirrie ward that year. In 1962 he made a run for the job of General Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers, but was defeated. Heffer made a contribution to a book, The Agreeable Autocracies, which was published in 1961. The book was a discussion of United States institutions.
Parliament In 1963 Heffer was unexpectedly selected to fight the Liverpool Walton constituency for the Labour Party. The previously Conservative-held constituency went to Heffer on a large swing in the 1964 general election, as did a number of other Liverpool seats. There was never any doubt that Heffer would ally with the left in the Parliamentary Labour Party, and he campaigned in 1965 for early moves to nationalise the docks, where he knew from his experience on Liverpool Trades Council that dockers were employed on highly disadvantageous terms that effectively prevented trade unions forming. Also in 1965 Heffer protested outside the United States embassy against the use of napalm and gas in the Vietnam War, and in Parliament against the diplomatic support given by the government. By 1970 he was rated as one of the most effective of the large 1964 intake of Labour MPs: in David Butler's The British General Election of 1970 (page 4), he was identified as a leading figure in the Tribune Group, which had been established in 1964.
Doris Heffer served jointly as her husband's secretary, and secretary to fellow Labour MP Norman Buchan. She often accompanied him to speaking engagements where they made an odd couple: Heffer was both tall and heavily built, while his wife was only 4'6" tall. Heffer made a good-humoured complaint when political journalist Andrew Roth described Doris as "tiny", insisting that she was actually "petite". According to the diaries of Giles Radice, Doris Heffer would sit in the front row of the audience when Heffer was speaking, saying, "Nonsense, Eric" if he said something with which she disagreed. The Heffers had no children.
Wilson's government After winning re-election with a 5,000 majority in the 1966 general election, Heffer began to make his mark on economic policy. With deflation proposed in the July 1966 economic crisis, he pressed for cuts in defence spending, and opposed the 'wage freeze' proposed in the government's Prices and Incomes Bill—rebelling against it in the House of Commons on several occasions in 1967. Heffer regarded unemployment as the worst catastrophe in running the economy and often demanded nationalisation of firms which threatened mass redundancies. Government policy was significantly different, placing more emphasis on maintaining the value of the pound. In August 1967, Wilson, who recognised his abilities, asked Heffer to take a junior post at the Ministry of Technology under Tony Benn. Heffer refused, citing his opposition to government economic policy, and demanded the resignation of James Callaghan as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
At this time, Heffer was a strong proponent of British membership of the European Economic Community. He headed a study group established by the Society for Parliamentary Studies (a group for left-wing Labour MPs) to look into British relations with Europe, and demanded the resignation of Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Fred Peart when Peart expressed doubts about the merits of the Common Agriculture Policy. At the 1967 Labour Party conference, Heffer argued for Britain in Europe to build up a third force in the world which would stand up to the US and the Soviet Union. He also began a campaign to win a place on the National Executive Committee at this conference, standing again each year and steadily building his support. Another preoccupation which began at this time was the Waterloo Cup, a hare coursing event at Great Altcar near his constituency: he promoted an unsuccessful private member's bill to ban hare coursing, returning to the subject at intervals over the next decade.
In February 1968 Heffer was one of the Labour MPs to rebel against the government's decision to withdraw British passports from the Kenyan Asians who were arriving at Heathrow Airport in increasing numbers, fleeing persecution in Kenya. He maintained pressure on the government over the Vietnam war and criticised the Greek military dictatorship of 'the Colonels' for "bestial and barbarous practices". On two of the issues which divided the Labour Party at the time, Heffer took the side of the rebels: he rejected the proposals for reform of the House of Lords as too weak, preferring fundamental reform or preferably abolition, and he worked to change proposals in Barbara Castle's trade union white paper In Place of Strife (a cabinet rebellion later forced the government to abandon it completely).
Opposing Heath As a strong opponent of the government's economic policy, Heffer was invited to submit an article to a Guardian book endorsing the re-election of a Labour government in the 1970 general election as a counter to an article by a Labour loyalist. Perhaps as a consequence of his identification with the left, Heffer had only a small swing against him in the election. Following a narrow defeat in the elections for the shadow cabinet, he accepted a front bench job as deputy to Barbara Castle as Shadow Minister of Employment. As such he was closely involved in the protests over the Heath government's Industrial Relations Act, which attempted to restrict the powers of trade unions.
Heffer's vote in shadow cabinet elections rose in 1971 when he tied with Castle in 15th place. While Heffer could work with Barbara Castle, she was moved in a reshuffle in 1972 and replaced by Reg Prentice who was already beginning the move across the political spectrum which would see him join the Conservative Party in 1977. Prentice's refusal to pledge support to five dockers imprisoned under the Industrial Relations Act appalled Heffer who considered resignation. When in February 1973 it became clear that Prentice had more leadership support, Heffer resigned (refusing an offer of another post). He remained interested in the topic and promoted a private member's bill to abolish the 'Lump' (sub-contracting of labour in the building industry).
Heffer had revised his opinions on the EEC in 1970, deciding that the spending on the Common Agriculture Policy was excessive and too big a burden on the budget. He voted with the majority of the Labour Party against endorsing the Heath government's application in October 1971.
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