George Cunningham (politician)

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

Early life

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

Political career

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 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 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.

Social Democratic Party

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. He contested the seat again at the 1987 general election when he lost by a similar narrow margin (the only former Labour defector to come close to regaining his seat that year). He has not re-entered the House of Commons since.

See also

• Scotland Act 1978
• Wales referendum, 1979

References

• Times Guide to the House of Commons, 1966 & 1983
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by George Cunningham
• Catalogue of the Cunningham papers held at LSE Archives