Peter Tatchell
Overview
Peter Gary Tatchell is an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n-born British
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...

 political campaigner best known for his work with LGBT social movements
LGBT social movements
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements share inter-related goals of social acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies have a long history of campaigning for what is generally called LGBT rights, also called gay...

. He attracted international attention when he attempted a citizen's arrest
Citizen's arrest
A citizen's arrest is an arrest made by a person who is not acting as a sworn law-enforcement official. In common law jurisdictions, the practice dates back to medieval Britain and the English common law, in which sheriffs encouraged ordinary citizens to help apprehend law breakers.Despite the...

 of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe. As one of the leaders of the liberation movement against white-minority rule, he was elected into power in 1980...

 in 1999 and again in 2001.

Tatchell was selected as Labour Party
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...

 Parliamentary
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

 candidate for Bermondsey
Bermondsey (UK Parliament constituency)
Bermondsey was a borough constituency centred on the Bermondsey district of South London, England. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom...

 in 1981, and was then denounced by party leader Michael Foot
Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot, FRSL, PC was a British Labour Party politician, journalist and author, who was a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1955 and from 1960 until 1992...

 for supporting extra-parliamentary action against the Thatcher government
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

; though the Labour Party subsequently allowed his selection, when he ran in the Bermondsey by-election
Bermondsey by-election, 1983
A by-election was held in the Bermondsey constituency in South London, on 24 February 1983, following the resignation of Labour MP Robert Mellish, who had represented the constituency and its predecessors in the House of Commons since 1946...

 in February 1983.
 
x
OK