David Morris (politician)

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David Morris (1928 – January 24, 2007) was a Welsh politician, member of the European Parliament, chairman of CND Cymru and peace activist.^[1]

As a young man, Morris worked in a steel foundry in Llanelli, South Wales. During the Second World War, he was conscripted to work down coal mines as a Bevin Boy.

He gained a scholarship to Ruskin College, Oxford, and later became a Presbyterian minister.

Morris became an anti-nuclear campaigner in 1957, opposing Operation Grapple X, in which Britain tested nuclear weapons including its first hydrogen bombs over the Pacific Ocean atoll of Christmas Island (now Kiritimati).^[2]

[edit] Political Career

David Morris served as a Labour Councillor in South Wales, before being elected to the European Parliament in 1984. After boundary changes he served until 1999, latterly representing South Wales West, an area corresponding to Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend.

In the late 1990s due to the introduction of a list system of proportional representation for British seats, the Labour Party introduced a transitional selection process to determine its candidates for the 1999 European Elections. Like other internal Labour Party processes of the time, (e.g. "Labour London Mayor Selection" and the "Welsh Labour Leadership Election"), the process to determine the order of candidates on the party list for the 1999 elections was controversial with allegations that it was undemocratic and designed to sidline left of centre candidates, such as Morris.

Morris, (like the other sitting Welsh MEPs), was re-elected to be a Labour candidate by members in his own soon to be defunct Consitituency. However in the more important process to determine the Welsh Labour candidates’ party list ranking, Morris was placed too low to have a realistic chance of being elected, he therefore withdrew as a candidate.

After retiring from the European Parliament Morris remained active in Welsh and Labour politics. Indeed he eventually benefited from the democratisation of the Welsh Labour Party that occurred after Rhodri Morgan took over as leader, when he was elected to represent "South West Wales", (the same area as his former European Constituency) on the National Executive Committee of the Welsh Labour Party, on which he served until 2006.