George Cunningham

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George Cunningham (born 10 June 1931) is a British politician.

Cunningham was educated at Dunfermline High School, Blackpool Grammar School and Manchester University. He worked for the Labour Party as Commonwealth officer.

Cunningham contested Henley in 1966 as a Labour candidate. He was originally elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington South West from 1970 to 1974, and after boundary changes that year, he was elected for Islington South and Finsbury.

Cunningham was a fiercely independent and very able parliamentarian^{[citation needed]} and strongly opposed Scottish devolution. At his prompting the House accepted an amendment to the 1978 Scotland Act that a majority voting "yes" in the devolution referendum would have to constitute at least 40% of the Scottish electorate. As he expected the threshold wasn't achieved. In this sense Cunningham could be said to have brought down his government and ultimately speeded his own political demise.

In November 1981 Cunningham resigned from the Labour Party and sat as an independent Labour MP, before becoming one of the later ex-Labour defectors to the newly-founded Social Democratic Party in June 1982. Cunningham lost his seat by just 363 votes (1%) at the 1983 general election to Labour candidate Chris Smith, lost by a similar margin in 1987 (the only former Labour defector to come close to regaining his seat that year) and has not re-entered the House of Commons since.

[edit] References

• Times Guide to the House of Commons, 1966 & 1983
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page

[edit] See also

• Scotland Act 1978
• Wales referendum, 1979

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Albert Evans	Member of Parliament for Islington South West 1970–1974	Succeeded by constituency abolished
Preceded by new constituency	Member of Parliament for Islington South and Finsbury 1974–1983	Succeeded by Chris Smith