Edward Robert Knight (13 June 1933 – 30 March 2020) was a local politician in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, England, who was leader of

Lambeth London Borough Council Lambeth London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Lambeth in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, and one of the 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. The council meets at Lambeth Town Hall ...

from 1978Cathy Ashley "Ted Knight" in Greg Rosen (ed.) ''Dictionary of Labour Biography'', London: Politicos, 2001, p.342-43 until he was disqualified as a councillor in 1986.

Lambeth Council

Ted Knight was active in the Labour Party from a young age but was expelled from the Party in 1956 following a purge of the Trotskyist

Socialist Labour League The Workers Revolutionary Party is a Trotskyist group in Britain once led by Gerry Healy. In the mid-1980s, it split into several smaller groups, one of which retains possession of the name. The Club The WRP grew out of the faction Gerry Healy ...

(SLL). Knight was re-admitted to the Norwood

Constituency Labour Party __NOTOC__ A constituency Labour Party (CLP) is an organisation of members of the British Labour Party who live in a particular parliamentary constituency. In England and Wales, CLP boundaries coincide with those for UK parliamentary constituenc ...

in 1970. In Norwood Labour Party Knight met

Ken Livingstone Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is an English politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and as Mayor of London from the creation of the office i ...

, later Leader of the

Greater London Council The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...

and

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, and the two formed an alliance to influence the selection of candidates in Norwood for the council elections in 1974. After that, they jostled for the leadership of the left within the Labour Group on

but Livingstone's later move to Camden in North London left the way open for Knight to become the leading left-winger within the Labour Group and Leader of the Council. When the Conservative Government took powers through the

Rates Act 1984 The Rates Act 1984 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom, which controls the tax-raising powers of local authorities. Background The Thatcher government had been at odds with several high spending Labour controlled councils. The Loc ...

to limit the budgets of local councils, several left-wing Labour councils organised a

rate-capping rebellion The rate-capping rebellion was a campaign within English local councils in 1985 which aimed to force the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher to withdraw powers to restrict the spending of councils. The affected councils were almost all r ...

in which they refused to set a budget. All the councils eventually backed down except

Liverpool City Council Liverpool City Council is the governing body for the city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. It consists of 90 councillors, three for each of the city's 30 wards. The council is currently controlled by the Labour Party and is led by Mayor ...

and Lambeth. The district auditor found that the council had lost interest on tax payments as a result, which was held to be due to the "wilful misconduct" of Knight and 31 other councillors. Each was required to repay the amount of lost interest in a surcharge and banned from holding office for five years from 1986. The Labour Party's leader,

Neil Kinnock Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a British former politician. As a member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader of ...

, blamed local leaders like Knight and

Linda Bellos Linda Ann Bellos (born 13 December 1950) is a British businesswoman, radical feminist and gay-rights activist. In 1981 she became the first black woman to join the ''Spare Rib'' collective. She was elected to Lambeth Borough Council in London ...

from Lambeth, for bringing the Labour Party into disrepute. He was the Labour candidate for the marginal Hornsey constituency in the 1979 general election but lost. He stood unsuccessfully in 1981 Greater London Council election for Norwood. Prior to the 1987 general election, Knight was a potential candidate for Coventry North East: a runner-up at the

selection meeting, he lost out to John Hughes.

After Lambeth

Knight took a break from politics after being expelled from office as a result of the rate-capping rebellion. He pursued various business interests and remained treasurer of the town hall social club until it closed in 1994. He remained active within his union,

Unite Unite may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Albums * ''Unite'' (A Friend in London album), 2013 album by Danish band A Friend in London * ''Unite'' (Kool & the Gang album), 1993 * ''Unite'' (The O.C. Supertones album), 2005 Songs ...

. Knight was elected to the National Committee of the Labour Representation Committee at their AGM on 17 November 2007. After the election of

Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...

as leader of the Labour Party, Knight again became active in Lambeth Labour, securing the post of Branch Chair in Gipsy Hill ward in November 2016. Knight died in March 2020.

Lambeth Council

After Lambeth

References

Further reading