Bernie Grant

Bernard Alexander Montgomery Grant (17 February 1944 – 8 April, 2000), known simply as Bernie Grant, was a politician in the United Kingdom, and was Labour member of Parliament for Tottenham at the time of his death.

He was born in Georgetown, Guyana, 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 official, and moved into politics, becoming a Labour councillor in the London Borough of Haringey in 1978. He became its leader in 1985, but aroused controversy in the media. Following the Broadwater Farm riot of 1985, during which a policeman was hacked to death, he was famously quoted as saying that the police had been given "a bloody good hiding" - an allegation which Grant strenuously claimed had been taken out of context. His vilification in the right wing media however did not prevent his becoming MP for Tottenham in the 1987 election, one of only three black MPs at the time.

He was associated with the Socialist Campaign Group, and spoke out against police racism. Following his death from a heart attack, 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, who won the by-election.

As part of his legacy to creative culturally diverse talent based locally, nationally and internationally, in September 2007 in Tottenham, London, the Bernie Grant Arts Centre opened in his name. [www.berniegrantcentre.co.uk]

References

Times Guide to the House of Commons 1997

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