Liz Davies (born 1963) is a British

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and givin ...

, author and political activist who advocates socialist feminism.Liz Davie
"In praise of feminism"
''Morning Star'', 22 March 2013 She is the daughter of the Oxford academic and historian of Tudor England, C. S. L. Davies.

Career

She studied at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, taking a sabbatical year working for the

students' union A students' union, also known by many other names, is a student organization present in many colleges, universities, and high schools. In higher education, the students' union is often accorded its own building on the campus, dedicated to ...

as welfare secretary. Specialising in housing law, Davies initially worked as a

solicitor A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...

before being called to the bar in 1994. Davies is the co-author of ''Housing Allocation and Homelessness: Law and Practice''. She was a finalist for the Legal Aid Barrister of the Year award in 2014.

Politics

A former Labour Party councillor in Islington (1990–98), she was selected as the Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Leeds North-East in 1995, but was subsequently found "unsuitable" as a candidate by a large majority of the Labour Party's ruling National Executive Committee. Davies' selection was accompanied by allegations over her behaviour at Labour group meetings, for which Davies later commenced legal proceedings against three former Islington councillors, which ended in a settlement in which the three apologised and made a contribution to the general election fund of their local MP. She was also attacked for her association with the newspaper '' London Left Briefing''; its connections to

Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...

groups was used against Davies. She was elected as a member of the NEC in October 1998 on the Grassroots Alliance slate, serving on the body for two years, an experience recounted in her book, ''Through the Looking Glass,'' published in 2001. Later, after resigning from the Labour Party, she joined the Socialist Alliance in 2001, becoming the organisation's chair for nine months. She resigned from the SA in 2002 over claims of financial "bad practice" and frustration at the way the Socialist Workers Party's leadership had involved itself in the organisation's activities. She was chair of the

Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers is a socialist and legal campaigning organisation in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1930 to provide legal support to the then Labour government. The Society was named after Viscount Haldane, a Lib ...

between 2006 and 2014 and is now Honorary Vice-President of the Society. As chair, she organised the Commission of Inquiry into Legal Aid, leading to the publication of
Unequal Before the Law
', and held an international conferenc

She re-joined the Labour Party in 2015 and was secretary of Hackney North & Stoke Newington CLP between 2017–2018. She is now an active member of Southampton Test CLP. She has been a member of

Unite the Union Unite the Union, commonly known as Unite, is a British and Irish trade union which was formed on 1 May 2007 by the merger of Amicus and the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU). Unite is the second largest trade union in the UK (afte ...

(formerly T&GWU) since 1989. Liz Davies' partner was the American-born political activist and writer

Mike Marqusee __NOTOC__ Mike Marqusee (; 27 January 1953 – 13 January 2015) was an American writer, journalist and political activist in London. Marqusee's first published work was the essay "Turn Left at Scarsdale", written when he was a sixteen-year-old high ...

,Mike Marquse
"Ten years on: a comment on the British SWP"
MikeMarqusee.com, 10 January 2013 who died in January 2015.

References

External links

Liz Davies' websiteGarden Court Chambers homepage
*Extracts from ''Through the Looking Glass'' published in ''The Guardian'', Marc

2001 {{DEFAULTSORT:Davies, Liz 1963 births Living people Alumni of University College London British women lawyers Councillors in the London Borough of Islington English barristers Labour Party (UK) councillors Labour Party (UK) parliamentary candidates Women councillors in England