1981 Labour Party deputy leadership election

1981 Labour Party deputy leadership election
← 1980 27 September 1981 (1981-09-27) 1983 →
  Denis Healey.jpg 11.12.67 Présentation officielle du Concorde (1967) - 53Fi1748 (Tony Benn).jpg No image.svg
Candidate Denis Healey Tony Benn John Silkin
First ballot 45.4% 36.6% 18.0%
Second ballot 50.4% 49.6% Eliminated

Deputy Leader before election

Denis Healey

Elected Deputy Leader

Denis Healey

The 1981 Labour Party deputy leadership election took place on 27 September 1981 when Tony Benn unsuccessfully challenged the incumbent deputy leader Denis Healey at the party conference. Healey had been elected unopposed as deputy leader in the previous year.

The election took place at the Labour Party conference, with affiliated trade unions holding 40% of the votes, delegates from Constituency Labour Parties holding 30% of the votes, and the Parliamentary Labour Party holding the final 30% of the votes.

Candidates

It was the first election to take place using the party's electoral college. At this time 40% of the votes were given to affiliated unions and societies, and 30% each to the Parliamentary Labour Party and the individual members and activists of the party. When this plurality in favour of the unions was first introduced, it received considerable criticism from the more social democratic wing of the party. It transpired that if the unions had had an equal share to the PLP and the membership then Healey's narrow majority would have been wiped out and the more left-wing Benn would have won the contest. The challenge for the deputy leadership of the party came a year after the election of Michael Foot as leader, which had seen the party shift to the left and resulted in a split which had created the SDP, who in turn had formed an alliance with the Liberal Party to appeal to centrist voters.

Results

First round
Candidate Affiliated block
votes
(40%)
CLP block votes (30%) PLP votes
(30%)
Overall result
Votes % Votes % Votes % %
Denis Healey 3,968 61.7 112 17.9 125 51.0 45.4
Tony Benn 1,030 16.0 490 78.3 55 22.4 36.6
John Silkin Red XN 1,429 22.2 24 3.8 65 26.5 18.0
Second round
Candidate Affiliated block
votes
(40%)
CLP block votes (30%) PLP votes
(30%)
Overall result
Votes % Votes % Votes % %
Denis Healey Green tickY 3,969 62.5 118 18.9 137 65.9 50.4
Tony Benn 2,383 37.5 506 81.1 71 34.1 49.6

In popular culture

A documentary, This Week: Benn's Bandwagon was first shown on 28 April 1981, in the second month of the contest and at the point when it began to dawn on the pundits that Tony Benn was going to come close to winning.[citation needed]

Outcome

Healey's victory has been seen as a significant moment in the history of the Labour Party. Future Labour leader and Prime Minister Tony Blair said after Healey's death that "in winning the deputy leadership of the Labour Party in 1981, he probably saved the Labour Party as an instrument of government and social change". Steve Richards notes that in the event of a Benn victory the SDP hoped to attract a number of significant defectors from the Labour Party and argues that while not obvious in 1981 the victory of Healey "marked the beginning of the end for the SDP".



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