Stephen Haseler

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Stephen Michael Alan Haseler (9 January 1942 – 20 July 2017)[1] was a British academic and advocate for a British Republic. He was a Professor of Government, author of many books on contemporary politics and economics.

Personal life and education

Born in Colchester, Essex, Haseler attended Westcliff High School for Boys, Southend, and then University College, London and the London School of Economics (LSE). He was awarded a BSc(Econ.) in 1963 and a PhD in 1967 for his thesis on Revisionism in the British Labour Party during the post-war period.[1] Haseler married (Roberta) Bay Haseler from New York in 1967, and they lived together in London and Washington DC.

Political involvement

Haseler had a long record of political involvement in Britain, having stood for election to the

British Parliament for the Labour Party in Saffron Walden at the 1966 general election, when he was the youngest candidate in the country, and in the 1970 general election for the Maldon constituency. He was elected to the Greater London Council for the Wood Green division in 1973, where he was appointed chairman of the General Purposes Committee.[2]

In June 1975 he became a founder and joint secretary of the

International Socialists. Although the new group was supported by the Cabinet minister Reg Prentice, who declared that he would speak in its support on "any platform", the decision to criticise mainstream Labour politicians and trade unionists – including Michael Foot and the railwaymen's leader Sid Weighell – for writing opinion pieces in Communist-backed newspapers did not go down well.[3] Harold Wilson, speaking at the party conference that year, attacked the SDA as an "anti-party group which has been disporting itself in Blackpool this weekend, leaking… their smears to an ever-ready Tory press."[4]

Haseler was expelled from the Labour Party in 1980, after the NEC decided by a majority of 23 to 2 that membership of the group was incompatible with party values.

Republic (1990–2004) and honorary chair from 2004 to 2007. He was on the Pro-Euro Conservative Party list for the London constituency in the 1999 European Parliament elections.[8]

Although initially an opponent of Britain's membership of the European Economic Community (as it was then), he later became a staunch European federalist who believed that the only credible future for the UK is in the European Union, and that the only viable future for the peoples of Europe lies in a United States of Europe.

Academic interests

His specialisms were British politics, the UK Constitution, Transatlantic relations and European defence. However, following the publication of his book The Super-Rich (Macmillan 2001), he wrote and lectured on the

The American International University in London
, and was a senior fellow at the Federal Trust.

Formerly the director of The Global Policy Institute based at London Metropolitan University, he held visiting professorships at

emeritus professor at London Metropolitan University
.

Publications

Haseler published extensively, including The Gaitskellites (Macmillan, 1969), The Death of British Democracy (Elek, 1976), The Tragedy of Labour (Blackwells, Oxford, 1981), The Battle for Britain: Thatcher and the New Liberals (

Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II
.

References

  1. ^
    Who's Who & Who Was Who. Vol. 2018 (online ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  2. ^ 'Young newcomers in Labour GLC team of committee chiefs', Times, 21 April 1973.
  3. ^ ‘East Wind Over Blackpool’, SDA newsletter, issue no. 2, 28 September 1975
  4. ^ Labour Party, Report of the 74th Annual Conference (London, 1975), p.187.
  5. ^ 'Labour Party puts the SDA out in the cold', Guardian, 18 December 1980.
  6. ^ Peter Barberis et al., Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations, p.358
  7. ISBN 0203013271
    .
  8. ^ "BBC News | Euros 99 | UK Regions | London". news.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stephen_Haseler&oldid=1293938295"