1981 Labour Party deputy leadership election

none August 2019 1981 Labour Party deputy leadership election presidential no 1980 Labour Party deputy leadership election 1980 1983 Labour Party deputy leadership election 1983 First ballot Second ballot 1981 9 27 yes Denis Healey 2.jpg 150x150px Denis Healey 45.4% 50.4% Tony Benn 1981 Edit (cropped).jpg 150x150px Tony Benn 36.6% 49.6% John Silkin.png 150x150px John Silkin 18.0% Eliminated Deputy Leader Denis Healey Denis Healey The 1981 Labour Party deputy leadership election took place on 27 September 1981 when Tony Benn unsuccessfully challenged the incumbent deputy leader Denis Healey at the party conference. Healey had been elected unopposed as deputy leader in the previous year. The election took place at the Labour Party conference, with affiliated trade unions holding 40% of the votes, delegates from Constituency Labour Parties holding 30% of the votes, and the Parliamentary Labour Party holding the final 30% of the votes. Candidates Denis Healey, incumbent Deputy Leader, Member of Parliament for Leeds East Tony Benn, former Secretary of State for Energy, Member of Parliament for Bristol South East John Silkin, Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, Member of Parliament for Lewisham Deptford It was the first election to take place using the party's electoral college. At this time 40% of the votes were given to affiliated unions and societies, and 30% each to the Parliamentary Labour Party and delegates representing individual members and activists of the party via their local Constituency Labour Parties (CLP). When this plurality in favour of the unions was first introduced, it received considerable criticism from the more social democratic wing of the party. It transpired it was the union ("Affiliated") block that provided a majority for Denis Healey, and had its share of the vote been equal to that of the PLP and the party membership (via the CLPs) then Healey's narrow majority would have been wiped out and the more left-wing Benn would have won the contest. The challenge for the deputy leadership of the party came a year after the election of Michael Foot as leader, which had seen the party shift to the left and resulted in a split which had created the SDP, who in turn had formed an alliance with the Liberal Party to appeal to centrist voters. Results + First roundhttps://grahampointer.blogspot.com/2015/05/should-tony-benn-have-been-winner-of.html Should Tony Benn Have Been The Winner Of The 1981 Labour Deputy Leadership Election? Graham Pointer's Blog Pointer Graham 11 May 2015 17 January 2016 Candidate Affiliated blockvotes (40%)Under the rules at the time of the contest, block votes were cast by delegates and the Parliamentary Party at the Labour Party Conference. Affiliated Unions held 40% of the votes, CLPs 30% and the PLP 30%. CLP block votes (30%) PLP votes (30%) Overall result Votes % Votes % Votes % % Denis Healey 3,968 61.7 112 17.9 125 51.0 45.4 Tony Benn 1,030 16.0 490 78.3 55 22.4 36.6 John Silkin 1,429 22.2 24 3.8 65 26.5 18.0 + Second roundhttps://grahampointer.blogspot.com/2015/05/should-tony-benn-have-been-winner-of.html Should Tony Benn Have Been The Winner Of The 1981 Labour Deputy Leadership Election? Graham Pointer's Blog Pointer Graham 11 May 2015 17 January 2016 Candidate Affiliated blockvotes (40%) CLP block votes (30%) PLP votes (30%) Overall result Votes % Votes % Votes % % Denis Healey 3,969 62.5 118 18.9 137 65.9 50.4 Tony Benn 2,383 37.5 506 81.1 71 34.1 49.6 In popular culture A documentary, This Week: Benn's Bandwagon was first shown on 28 April 1981, in the second month of the contest and at the point when it began to dawn on the pundits that Tony Benn was going to come close to winning.August 2019 Legacy Healey's victory has been seen as a significant moment in the history of the Labour Party. Future Labour leader and Prime Minister Tony Blair said after Healey's death that "in winning the deputy leadership of the Labour Party in 1981, he probably saved the Labour Party as an instrument of government and social change".'Labour Party giant' Denis Healey dies at 98 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34434378 2 February 2022 BBC News BBC 3 October 2015 Steve Richards notes that in the event of a Benn victory the SDP hoped to attract a number of significant defectors from the Labour Party and argues that while not obvious in 1981 the victory of Healey "marked the beginning of the end for the SDP".Richards Steve The Prime Ministers We Never Had; Success and Failure from Butler to Corbyn 2021 Atlantic Books London 978 1 83895 241 9 123 References Sources Leadership Selection and Party Renewal, Universities of Toronto & Essex http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~tquinn/labour_party_deputy.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20140417101550/http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~tquinn/labour_party_deputy.htm 17 April 2014 expanded Category:Deputy leaders of the Labour Party (UK) 1981 Category:1981 elections in the United Kingdom Category:Tony Benn Labour Party deputy leadership election