John Robertson (3 February 1913 – 16 May 1987) was a British politician, who sat as a

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

before co-founding the

Scottish Labour Party Scottish Labour ( gd, Pàrtaidh Làbarach na h-Alba, sco, Scots Labour Pairty; officially the Scottish Labour Party) is a social democratic political party in Scotland. It is an autonomous section of the UK Labour Party. From their peak o ...

(SLP) in 1976.

Career

Robertson was a toolmaker and engineer and was assistant divisional organiser of the

Amalgamated Engineering Union The Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) was a major United Kingdom, British trade union. It merged with the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union to form the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union in 1992. History ...

from 1954 to 1961 and secretary of the

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

Iron and Steel Trades Joint Committee. Joining the Labour Party in 1943, he served as a councillor on

Lanarkshire Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark ( gd, Siorrachd Lannraig; sco, Lanrikshire), is a historic county, lieutenancy area and registration county in the central Lowlands of Scotland. Lanarkshire is the most populous county in Scotlan ...

County Council A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries. Ireland The county councils created under British rule in 1899 continue to exist in Irela ...

and Motherwell and Wishaw Council from 1946. At the 1951 general election Robertson stood as the Labour candidate in the marginal Conservative-held seat of Glasgow Scotstoun, losing by 625 votes. He was elected to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

ten years later at the 1961 by-election in the Paisley constituency, following the appointment of sitting MP Douglas Johnston as a judge in the

Court of Session The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland and constitutes part of the College of Justice; the supreme criminal court of Scotland is the High Court of Justiciary. The Court of Session sits in Parliament House in Edinburgh ...

. He was re-elected at five subsequent general elections. On 18 January 1976 Robertson, along with another Labour MP,

Jim Sillars James Sillars (born 4 October 1937) is a Scottish politician and campaigner for Scottish independence. Sillars served as a Labour Party MP for South Ayrshire from 1970 to 1976. He founded and led the pro- Scottish Home Rule Scottish Labour ...

and Labour's senior Scottish researcher, Alex Neil, officially established the Scottish Labour Party (SLP). The SLP emerged as a left-wing split from the mainstream Labour Party over distrust about how strong the then Labour government's stated commitment to Scottish

devolution Devolution is the statutory delegation of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to govern at a subnational level, such as a regional or local level. It is a form of administrative decentralization. Devolved territories h ...

was in reality. Robertson was a leading figure in the SLP, along with Sillars, but unlike Sillars he stood down at the 1979 general election, deciding not to contest his Paisley seat. The Scottish Labour Party was officially disbanded in 1981, after failing to win any seats at the 1979 general election.

References

Sources

*''The Times Guide to the House of Commons'',

Times Newspapers Ltd News Corp UK & Ireland Limited (trading as News UK, formerly News International and NI Group) is a British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media conglomerate News Corp. It is the current publisher of ...

, 1951, 1966 *

External links

* 1913 births 1987 deaths Amalgamated Engineering Union-sponsored MPs Scottish Labour MPs Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Paisley constituencies Councillors in North Lanarkshire Scottish Labour Party (1976) politicians UK MPs 1959–1964 UK MPs 1964–1966 UK MPs 1966–1970 UK MPs 1970–1974 UK MPs 1974 UK MPs 1974–1979 Burials at the Southern Necropolis British political party founders Scottish Labour councillors {{Scotland-Labour-UK-MP-stub