Ken Coates

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This article is about the British politician. For the Canadian historian, see Ken Coates (historian).

Kenneth Sidney Coates (16 September 1930 – 27 June 2010) was a British politician and writer. He chaired the

GUE/NGL
from 1998 to 1999.

Early years

Coates was born in

British army to fight in the Malayan Emergency.[2] He later won a scholarship in 1956 to the University of Nottingham and achieved a first in Sociology.[3]

After the war, he joined the

International Group, forerunner of the International Marxist Group
.

Coates also played leading roles in the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation (BRPF), the Institute for Workers' Control, and European Nuclear Disarmament. He contested Nottingham South in 1983, but lost by several thousand votes.

European Parliament

From 1989 to 1998 he was a Labour Party member of the European Parliament, and spent five years as President of its Human Rights Subcommittee. In 1998 Coates was expelled from the Labour Party because he left the

European United Left/Nordic Green Left in the European Parliament, after criticising New Labour's move to the right.[2][4]

It was while a member of the European Parliament that Coates was in contact with Vadim Zagladin, one of Mikhail Gorbachev's advisors, about the idea of a joint meeting between the European Parliament and the Supreme Soviet. Coates persuaded the European Parliament to explore the possibility of such a joint meeting, as a practical way of exploring Gorbachev's call for a ‘common European home’ and supporting his democratic reforms. Eduard Shevardnadze, the Soviet foreign minister, visited the European Parliament, and said he would be willing to be present at a joint meeting. Coates visited Zagladin in Moscow, who offered a four-point programme of stages for realisation of the Joint Special Session, as it came to be known.[5][6]

Coates pioneered a number of initiatives to help focus the institutions of European civil society beginning with a very successful Pensioners’ Parliament, and also including a special Parliament of Disabled People, and two Europe-wide conferences of unemployed people. He strongly supported the Delors programme for full employment in Europe, and became rapporteur of the Parliament's Temporary Committee on Employment, which carried two major reports with almost unanimous support of the European Parliament.

Coates was the co-author, with

Bolshevik leader. He also continued to support the democratic left in Eastern Europe, and was a member of the advisory board of the Novi Plamen
magazine.

Coates was special professor in the Department of Adult Education at the University of Nottingham (1990–2004).

Books written or co-written

Wikiquote has quotations related to Ken Coates.

References

  1. ^ The Spokesman, back issues
  2. ^ a b c Palmer, J. (29 June 2010). "Ken Coates obituary". The Guardian Online.
  3. ^ "Kenneth Coates". The Telegraph Online. 22 August 2010.
  4. ^ Izzo, Federica (25 April 2014). "From the Italian Communist Party to Tsipras: The path of Europe's radical left" (PDF).
  5. ^ European Labour Forum (1): 3–4. Summer 1990. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. ^ European Labour Forum (3): 20–22. Winter 1990–91. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

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