Michael Collins Welsh is a retired coal miner and 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...

 politician from South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and City of Sheffield...

 in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. He sat in the House of Commons from 1979 to 1992.

Welsh was educated at elementary school

Elementary school

An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...

s, at the University of Sheffield

University of Sheffield

The University of Sheffield is a research university based in the city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It is one of the original 'red brick' universities and is a member of the Russell Group of leading research intensive universities...

 and at Ruskin College in Oxford. He was a local councillor from 1962, and was elected at the 1979 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1979

The United Kingdom general election of 1979 was held on 3 May 1979 to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons. The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher ousted the incumbent Labour government of James Callaghan with a parliamentary majority of 43 seats...

 as the Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for the Labour safe seat

Safe seat

A safe seat is a seat in a legislative body which is regarded as fully secured, either by a certain political party, the incumbent representative personally or a combination of both...

 of Don Valley

Don Valley (UK Parliament constituency)

Don Valley is a parliamentary constituency which returns one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.Created in 1918, Don Valley is a former coal mining area which has elected only Labour MPs since 1922...

, sponsored by National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). In 1981, when the NUM in Yorkshire began to demand that its five sponsored MPs should support the unions' policies, Welsh was reported by The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

as the only one who was sufficiently left-wing to retain the union's support. In the Labour Party Deputy leadership election

Labour Party (UK) deputy leadership election, 1981

The 1981 Labour Party deputy leadership election took place on 27 September 1981 when Tony Benn unsuccessfully challenged the incumbent deputy leader Denis Healey at the party conference. Healey had been elected as deputy leader in the previous year....

 in 1981, Welsh voted for the left-wing candidate Tony Benn

Tony Benn

Anthony Neil Wedgwood "Tony" Benn, PC is a British Labour Party politician and a former MP and Cabinet Minister.His successful campaign to renounce his hereditary peerage was instrumental in the creation of the Peerage Act 1963...

 in both ballots.

During the Falklands War

Falklands War

The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...

 in May 1982, Welsh was one of 69 MPs who signed an Early Day Motion

Early day motion

An Early Day Motion , in the Westminster system, is a motion, expressed as a single sentence, tabled by Members of Parliament for debate "on an early day" . Controversial EDMs are not signed by Government Ministers, PPS or the Speaker of the House of Commons and very few are debated on the floor...

 calling for an immediate halt to hostilities.

After boundary changes he was returned at the 1983 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1983

The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of Labour in 1945...

 as MP for the new Doncaster North

Doncaster North (UK Parliament constituency)

- Sources :* Election results from 1992 to the present* Election results from 1945 to the present* The website of Ed Miliband...

 constituency. He was nominated in November that year to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, and in July 1985 he was one of four Labour MPs on the committee who rejected the committee's finding that there were military grounds for the sinking during the Falklands War of the of the Argentinian warship General Belgrano

ARA General Belgrano

The ARA General Belgrano was an Argentine Navy light cruiser in service from 1951 until 1982. Formerly the , she saw action in the Pacific theater of World War II before being sold to Argentina. After almost 31 years of service, she was sunk during the Falklands War by the Royal Navy submarine ...

. The four MPs (Welsh, Dennis Canavan

Dennis Canavan

Dennis Andrew Canavan is a Scottish politician, and was an Independent Member of the Scottish Parliament for Falkirk West.-Early life:He was born in Cowdenbeath....

, Ian Mikardo

Ian Mikardo

Ian Mikardo , commonly known as Mik, was a British Labour and Co-operative politician. An ardent socialist and a Zionist, he remained a backbencher throughout his four decades in the House of Commons...

 and Nigel Spearing

Nigel Spearing

Nigel John Spearing is a British Labour Party politician.Nigel Spearing was born in London, and educated at Latymer Upper School, Hammersmith, and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. After graduating in 1956, he worked as a tutor and teacher, firstly at Wandsworth School and then at Elliot School,...

) published a minority report which accused the government of obstructing the committee by "suppression of evidence and giving of false evidence" and called for a further enquiry.

He was re-elected in 1987

United Kingdom general election, 1987

The United Kingdom general election of 1987 was held on 11 June 1987, to elect 650 members to the British House of Commons. The election was the third consecutive election victory for the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, who became the first Prime Minister since the 2nd...

, and retired from Parliament

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

 at the 1992 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1992

The United Kingdom general election of 1992 was held on 9 April 1992, and was the fourth consecutive victory for the Conservative Party. This election result was one of the biggest surprises in 20th Century politics, as polling leading up to the day of the election showed Labour under leader Neil...

.

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