John McGovern (13 December 1887 - 14 February 1968) was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 socialist politician.

Early career

Born into a Roman Catholic family, McGovern soon became involved in the Labour movement

Labour movement

The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...

 and anarchism

Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

. Active in opposition to World War I, he joined the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation

Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation

The Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation was a communist group in the Britain. It was founded by the group around Guy Aldred's Spur newspaper - mostly former Communist League members - in 1921...

 and became its treasurer, but soon left after disagreements with Guy Aldred

Guy Aldred

Guy Alfred Aldred - often Guy A. Aldred - was a British anarchist communist and a prominent member of the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation...

. He emigrated to Australia in 1923, but soon returned and became a prominent member of the Independent Labour Party

Independent Labour Party

The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...

 (ILP), at the time linked to the Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

. In 1929, he was elected to Glasgow City Council, a position he held for two years.

Leading the separation

He was elected to Parliament to represent Labour in Glasgow Shettleston

Glasgow Shettleston (UK Parliament constituency)

Glasgow Shettleston was a burgh constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1918 until 2005. The Shettleston area is represented is now covered by Glasgow Central and Glasgow East.-Boundaries:...

 in 1930. However, he was subsequently expelled from Labour following allegations that he had fixed the election to become the Labour candidate. This led him to become a leading proponent of the ILP disaffiliating from the Labour Party.

This was achieved the following year, but he was one of only five ILP members to retain their seats at the 1931 general election. He was active in a campaign to re-establish the tradition of free assembly and free speech on Glasgow Green

Glasgow Green

Glasgow Green is a park situated in the east end of Glasgow on the north bank of the River Clyde. It is the oldest park in the city dating back to the 15th century.In 1450, King James II granted the land to Bishop William Turnbull and the people of Glasgow...

, and after a heated debate in the Commons, refused to leave, eventually being forcibly ejected. He was fined for organising a meeting on the Green in support of this. His appeal against the charges, though unsuccessful, led directly to the reinstatement of the traditional rights. Despite often campaigning alongside communists in the unemployed movement, McGovern, with Richard Wallhead, led the opposition within the ILP to any official working relationship with the Communist Party of Great Britain

Communist Party of Great Britain

The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...

. He was particularly critical of the Moscow Trials

Moscow Trials

The Moscow Trials were a series of show trials conducted in the Soviet Union and orchestrated by Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge of the 1930s. The victims included most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks, as well as the leadership of the Soviet secret police...

.

Enquiry of Republican affairs

In 1937, McGovern led an ILP commission of enquiry into the affairs of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

. Ostensibly to counter allegations made by prominent Catholics as to Republican treatment of prisoners, he also aimed to support the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM

Poum

Poum is a commune in the North Province of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. The town of Poum is located in the far northwest, located on the southern part of Banare Bay, with Mouac Island just offshore....

), which was increasingly threatened by the communists, and to find information as to the disappearance of Andrés Nin

Andrés Nin

Andreu Nin i Pérez was a Spanish Communist revolutionary.- Early life :...

.

McGovern remained active through World War II, supporting the ILP's pacifist line. When the ILP Chairman C. A. Smith

C. A. Smith

Charles A. Smith , known as C. A. Smith, was a British politician who held prominent positions in several minor parties.Born in Bishop Auckland, Smith studied at the University of Durham and the University of London, then trained as a school teacher, and later worked as a tutor for the Workers'...

 unexpectedly quit the party in 1941 in disagreement with this policy, McGovern was elected in his place, although he held the post for only two years.

Labour Party

The ILP's best known leader, James Maxton

James Maxton

James Maxton was a Scottish socialist politician, and leader of the Independent Labour Party. A prominent proponent of Home Rule for Scotland, he is remembered as one of the leading figures of the Red Clydeside era.-Early years:...

, died in 1946. Following this, and encouraged by the policies of the Labour Government, McGovern resigned from the ILP in March 1947 and became a Labour MP. By the end of the year, the remaining ILP MPs had followed him. He was re-elected for Labour in 1950 and 51, and in 1952 led the campaign to permit Trotskyist Tony Cliff

Tony Cliff

Tony Cliff , was a Trotskyist who was a founding member of the Socialist Review Group which went on to become the Socialist Workers Party...

 to remain in Britain. In November 1954 he had the Labour whip

Whip (politics)

A whip is an official in a political party whose primary purpose is to ensure party discipline in a legislature. Whips are a party's "enforcers", who typically offer inducements and threaten punishments for party members to ensure that they vote according to the official party policy...

 withdrawn for voting against German re-armament and sat as an independent

Independent (politician)

In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...

 until the whip was restored in March 1955.

McGovern's last years in Parliament were devoted to the campaign for moral re-armament

Moral Re-Armament

Moral Re-Armament was an international Christian moral and spiritual movement that, in 1938, developed from the American minister Frank Buchman's Oxford Group. Buchman, a Lutheran, headed MRA for 23 years, from 1938 until his death in 1961...

, a cause he had supported since 1938. He resigned from the Labour Party again in 1959 and stood down from Parliament at that year's general election. At the 1964 UK general election, he called for a vote for the Conservative Party

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

.

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