Ron Brown: 1938-2007

Posted by Colin Fox on August 12, 2007. Filed under Obituaries. Posted with the tags:Obituaries
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Ron Brown was that rare breed a trade’s union militant, who became a Labour MP [Leith 1979-1992] yet kept to his working class, socialist convictions.

Unlike many others who sat on those green Labour benches Ron wasn’t seduced by ‘the Palace of Westminster’. Steeped in the trade’s union movement and surrounded by a strong base of activists back in Edinburgh Ron was not the kind of man to forget the people who elected him.

Born in West Pilton on the eve of World War 2, the son of a taxi driver, Ron was a product of that Edinburgh which is often ignored, its working class majority. Nowhere is their spirit more apparent than in the people of Leith and Ron adored them. He was a local Councillor for the area before entering the Commons and was immensely proud to represent Leithers and by extension working class people everywhere.

For thirteen years at Westminster he brought the day to day reality of working class life to the ‘semi – detached’ House of Commons with all its pomposity and privilege. He saw himself as part of that noble tradition begun by Keir Hardie, the miner who seventy years earlier arrived at Westminster as Labour’s first MP dressed in his working clothes.

Ron found the antiquated procedures at Westminster immensely frustrating. No more so perhaps than during an infamous occasion in 1988 when Thatcher introduced the poll tax. During an impassioned and angry debate Ron picked up the Mace and dropped it to the floor. For his ‘crime’ which seems so lame now but caused outrage at the time, he was barred from the Commons for 20 days and ordered to pay for repairs to the ‘bauble’.

But Ron was, as he saw it, reflecting the anger of millions over the viciousness and inequity of the poll tax. He followed the advice of a predecessor Labour MP George Lansbury who argued that ‘it is better to break the law than break the poor’. Ron was propelled to the front of the anti poll tax movement in Scotland. On one occasion he was arrested for telling Mrs Thatcher, on one of her rare trips North of the Border, that she was ‘not welcome here’. He surely spoke for the nation as never before.

Ron Brown was a principled socialist activist, not a career politician and there is a world of difference between the two. He was not afraid to confront the political orthodoxy of the time. He was a first class spokesman for the anti poll tax movement and played no small part in its ultimate victory.

Although he was never far from Leith he was passionate about world affairs as a committed anti-imperialist. His warning in 1980 to the Thatcher government about arming the Muhajideen to overthrow the Government in Afghanistan seems awfully prophetic now in light of current events. He refused to join in the demonisation of various regimes just to suit the Foreign Office and Britain’s imperialist interests. And he often went where few others would dare, to Libya for example, where he helped secure the release of Scots engineer Robert Maxwell from jail in 1983.

Ron believed passionately that the families who lost loved ones at Lockerbie have been betrayed by a grotesque miscarriage of justice, where those who carried out the atrocity have been allowed to go free and a man who had nothing to do with the bombing fitted up for the crime.

Ron’s wicked sense of humour shone through when dealing with the allegations that he was a spy for Libya or indeed the Russians. ’I confess I was an agent for Littlewoods pools in the 1970’s’ he said ‘but no one else.’

As much as he liked a laugh he was deadly serious about the need to change the way the world was run. Indeed my fondest memory of Ron captures both sides of him. We were among a group of anti poll tax activists gathered in Mayfield, Midlothian to stop a poinding. When the Sheriff Officers arrived Ron dashed over to the 2 burly ‘enforcers’ and asked if they were in the union! Ron had hoped, forlornly as it transpired, he could appeal to their class sensibilities and get them to turn around and go home, but alas the National Union of Sheriff Officers [if there was such a thing] did not count these two likely lads among its membership. With Ron’s assistance we then resorted to more traditional methods of sending them ‘homewards to think again’, but you couldn’t help but admire his optimism!

The hope Ron had in some causes was not blindly applied across the board. He saw Blairism for the deceit that it was and faced up to the pessimistic conclusions that had to be drawn after 1995. The abandonment of socialist ideas by New Labour meant a difficult reality had to be faced. Labour was no longer a party of socialist values and after nearly 100 years no place for socialists. A new party of the left had to be built and Ron threw himself into the task with gusto.

Together with around 500 others Ron established the Scottish Socialist Alliance. The left in Scotland, which had suffered from division and mutual suspicion, had finally begun to get its act together. In the wise words of Tony Benn we began to ‘tie our ropes together’. The Scottish Socialist Party emerged and Ron was one of its founding members. He was an SSP member until his death.

Last year when the SSP was dragged through the hell of Tommy Sheridan’s libel action I found Ron to be a tower of strength. He had been through many such ‘trials’ before. Quickly realising there was not an ounce of sense in Tommy Sheridan’s legal action or his subsequent split from the SSP Ron dismissed the many invitations he received to join Solidarity. He believed Sheridan’s actions were not only ill judged but a classic case of someone thinking he was bigger than the movement he was part of.

Ron Brown was an active socialist for nearly fifty years. He was a member of the engineering union throughout and latterly President of Edinburgh Trades Union Council. He sat on the Edinburgh May Day Committee. He was a stalwart in hundreds of campaigns, demonstrations, protest marches, pickets and rallies throughout the city. Indeed it is hard to accept that we will not see him again on the posties picket lines, or the Meadowbank stadium protest, peace marches or anti war activities.

Ron’s wife May [nee Smart] died in 1995. Ron leaves his partner June Hutton, two sons Alan and Gavin and six grandchildren.