Bernie Grant
Encyclopedia
Bernard Alexander Montgomery Grant (17 February 1944 – 8 April 2000), known simply as Bernie Grant, was a politician in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, and was Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Tottenham
Tottenham (UK Parliament constituency)
Tottenham is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.- Boundaries :...

 at the time of his death.
He was born in Georgetown
Georgetown, Guyana
Georgetown, estimated population 239,227 , is the capital and largest city of Guyana, located in the Demerara-Mahaica region. It is situated on the Atlantic Ocean coast at the mouth of the Demerara River and it was nicknamed 'Garden City of the Caribbean.' Georgetown is located at . The city serves...

, Guyana
Guyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...

, and took up the British government's offer to let people from colonies move to the UK to do blue-collar work, in 1963. In the mid-1960s he was for a period a member of the Socialist Labour League. He quickly became a trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

 official, and moved into politics, becoming a Labour councillor in the London Borough of Haringey
London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey is a London borough, in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner London, and by others as part of Outer London. It was created in 1965 by the amalgamation of three former boroughs. It shares borders with six other London boroughs...

 in 1978.

When the Conservative government introduced "rate capping", Grant led the fight against it in the borough . This split the local Labour party, but through this split Grant became the Borough of Haringey leader in 1985.

He took control of the rebuilding project of Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace is a building in North London, England. It stands in Alexandra Park, in an area between Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green...

 which had been partially destroyed in a fire. The project had £15 million in cash, but the lack of financial control saw this surplus turn into deficit and interest payments eventually took the debt to a total of £80 million.

As Council leader during the Broadwater Farm riot
Broadwater Farm riot
The Broadwater Farm riot occurred around the Broadwater Farm area of Tottenham, North London, on 6 October 1985.The events of the day were dominated by two deaths. The first was that of Cynthia Jarrett, an African-Caribbean woman who died the previous day from a stroke during a police search of her...

 of 1985, in which a policeman, PC Blakelock, was murdered, he was brought into the national eye. He was widely quoted as saying "What the police got was a bloody good hiding". Grant claimed he had been taken out of context, but offered an apology to the family of PC Blakelock. A fuller version of the quotation is "The youths around here believe the police were to blame for what happened on Sunday and what they got was a bloody good hiding.". His comments brought swift denunciation from the Labour Party leadership and the then Conservative Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...

, Douglas Hurd
Douglas Hurd
Douglas Richard Hurd, Baron Hurd of Westwell, CH, CBE, PC , is a British Conservative politician and novelist, who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major between 1979 and his retirement in 1995....

, called him "the high priest of conflict" and several British newspapers dubbed him "Barmy Bernie". He claimed that he was merely explaining to a wider audience what the feeling on the estate was like. There is conflicting information whether Grant condemned the violence of the rioters the following day
.

The controversy, however did not prevent him becoming MP for Tottenham in the 1987 election
United Kingdom general election, 1987
The United Kingdom general election of 1987 was held on 11 June 1987, to elect 650 members to the British House of Commons. The election was the third consecutive election victory for the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, who became the first Prime Minister since the 2nd...

, one of only three black MPs at the time. He later stood for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party.

In 1989, Grant established and chaired the Parliamentary Black Caucus, modeled after the Congressional Black Caucus
Congressional Black Caucus
The Congressional Black Caucus is an organization representing the black members of the United States Congress. Membership is exclusive to blacks, and its chair in the 112th Congress is Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri.-Aims:...

 of the United States. The organization was committed to advancing the opportunities of Britain's ethnic minority communities.

He was associated with the Socialist Campaign Group
Socialist Campaign Group
The Socialist Campaign Group is a left-wing democratic socialist grouping of Labour Party Members of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. It was formed in December 1982 as an alternative Parliamentary left-wing group to the Tribune Group...

, and spoke out against police racism. He was married 3 times, living with his last wife in Muswell Hill. He died from a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

. His widow, Sharon Grant, was on the shortlist to succeed him as Labour candidate for Tottenham, but was beaten by the then-27-year-old David Lammy
David Lammy
David Lindon Lammy is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Tottenham since 2000.Lammy has commented on Britain's history of slavery.-Early life and Education:...

, who won the by-election.

In September 2007 in Tottenham, London, Haringey Council opened the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in his name.

External links

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