Stan Newens

Arthur Stanley Newens, known as Stan Newens, (born 4 February 1930) is a former British Labour Co-operative politician. He is a former Member of Parliament (MP) and Member of the European Parliament (MEP).

Newens received a History degree at University College, London and became a schoolteacher. In 1949 he Joined the Labour Party, and is still a member. At UCL, he met Anil Moonesinghe, a Sri Lankan Trotskyist, who was later to become a Cabinet Minister in Sri Lanka) and joined the Socialist Review Group led by Tony Cliff, a former member of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), which later became the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). He left this group in 1959. He held several posts in the National Union of Teachers and was chairman of the Movement for Colonial Freedom and president of the London Co-operative Society.

Newens represented Epping 1964-70 and Harlow 1974-83 in Parliament. He became MEP for the London Central constituency in 1984, sitting until 1999. He held several senior positions including Vice Chair of the PLP Foreign Affairs Group; Chair and Deputy Leader of the Labour Group of MEPs. He was generally seen as a prominent left-winger, campaigning against the Vietnam War and for other international causes.

Newens has been an active trade unionist and co-operator and has written numerous pamphlets and books, including "The Case Against Nato" (1972), "Third World: Change or Chaos" (1977), "A History of Struggle: 50th Anniversary of Liberation, formerly the Movement for Colonial Freedom" (2004) and Nicolae Ceausescu: The Man, His Ideas and His Socialist Achievements (1972). He is also a local historian of Essex and East London; his book "A History of North Weald Bassett & Its People" was published in 1985 and his study of Arthur Morrison was published at Loughton in 2008.

In Quest of a Fairer Society published November 2013 by The Memoir Club.

References

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs