Tom Horabin

Thomas Lewis Horabin (1896 – 26 April 1956) was a British Liberal politician who defected to the Labour Party.

Horabin was educated at Cardiff High School and became a civil servant and later a business consultant.

Following the death of Liberal Member of Parliament, Sir Francis Acland in 1939, Horabin was selected by North Cornwall Liberals to defend the marginal seat at the following by-election. Along with his party leader, Sir Archibald Sinclair, he was a vocal opponent of Chamberlain's Nazi appeasement policy. This issue was central to the debate in the by-election. He was also a strong advocate, along with Sir Stafford Cripps, of a Popular Front of left-of-centre parties coming together to defeat the Conservative led National government. He won the election, increasing the Liberal majority in a straight fight with the Conservatives, and continued to hold the seat until 1950.

In 1945 he authored "Politics Made Plain", a book urging voters to reject Churchill and the Conservatives at the general election. He was re-elected in 1945 and appointed Liberal Chief Whip by the new Liberal leader, Clement Davies. However, he became frustrated with some of the pro-Conservative sympathies of some of his colleagues. He resigned his post and his party's whip in 1946 to sit as an Independent.

In 1947 Horabin took the Labour whip. At the 1950 election, he fought Exeter as the Labour candidate, without success.

Further reading

* [http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk/uploads/28-Autumn%25202000.pdf “Tom Horabin” - the maverick career of the radical Liberal MP] by Jaime Reynolds and Ian Hunter: Journal of Liberal History, Issue 28, Autumn 2000
* “Tom Horabin remembered” – interview with Mary Wright, the daughter of Tom Horabin MP by Robert Ingham, Journal of Liberal History, Issue 53, Winter 2006-07