Michael Meadowcroft

Michael Meadowcroft
1st Leader of Refounded Liberal Party
In office 13 March 1989 – 2002
Preceded by	Party Refounded
Succeeded by	Mike Oborski
Member of Parliament for Leeds West
In office 9 June 1983 – 11 June 1987
Preceded by	Joseph Dean
Succeeded by	John Battle
Personal details
Born	6 March 1942 (1942-03-06) (age 69) Southport, UK
Political party	(1) Liberal (1962 - 1989) (2) Liberal Party (1989 - 2007) (3) Liberal Democrats (2007 - present)

Michael James Meadowcroft (born 6 March 1942) is a politician and political affairs consultant in the United Kingdom.

He was a Liberal Member of Parliament for Leeds West from 1983 to 1987, and founder of the "continuing" Liberal Party in 1989 following the party's merger with the Social Democratic Party to form the Social & Liberal Democrats. He has been a member of the Liberal Democrats since September 2007.

Early life

Meadowcroft grew up in Southport and was educated at King George V Grammar School. In 1958, he left school to work as a bank clerk, and joined the Liberal Party. He became Chairman of the Merseyside Region of the National League of Young Liberals in 1961.

Joining Liberal Party

Meadowcroft joined the Liberal Party’s full-time staff in 1962 as a local government officer. In August 1967, he became the party’s full-time regional officer in Yorkshire. In 1968, he was elected to Leeds City Council, on which he served until 1983. He also served on West Yorkshire County Council in 1973–76 and 1981–83.

In 1970, he was appointed assistant secretary of the Joseph Rowntree Social Services Trust. In this role, he had contact with African liberation movements, and travelled several times to central and southern Africa. He attended the University of Bradford beginning 1975, and was awarded an MPhil in 1978 for a thesis on the political history of Leeds from 1903–26.

Member of Parliament

Meadowcroft had fought Leeds West in both 1974 general elections, but stood down in 1979. He was readopted for 1983 and won the seat. He served as health spokesman for the Liberal Party in Parliament, and was a whip. He lost his seat in 1987, and later publicly blamed SDP leader David Owen's flirtation with Thatcherism for his voters' disaffection with the SDP-Liberal Alliance.

He served as general secretary of the Bradford Metropolitan Council for Voluntary Service until 1983, and as chairman of the Liberal Assembly Committee from 1976–81.

In 1986 he with two other MPs Archie Kirkwood MP and Simon Hughes MP and the NLYL and other parts of the party produced the booklet Across the Divide Liberal Values on Defence and Disarmament This was the rally call that defeated the party leadership in the debate over the issue of an independent nuclear deterrent.

He was the party's President-elect in 1987, but the merger prevented him taking office.

Meadowcroft wrote extensively on Liberal philosophy from his base in community politics, and became a critic of the party's leadership, whom some accused of seeing radical liberalism as an electoral liability.

He was profoundly suspicious of the proposed alliance with the Social Democratic Party in 1981, writing a sceptical pamphlet, "Social Democracy – Barrier or Bridge?", for the radical magazine Liberator.

He was elected to the Liberal/SDP merger negotiating team, but was among the Liberal negotiators who walked out in January 1988 over what they were convinced were the deal's unacceptable terms. At the Blackpool special assembly later that month, he led the campaign opposing the merger. He briefly stayed on to help Alan Beith's unsuccessful campaign to become leader of the merged party.

Leader of re-founding of Liberal Party, 1989

In the early spring of 1989, Meadowcroft announced the refounding of the Liberal Party. The political and financial difficulties of the Social and Liberal Democrats led many to believe that the Liberal Party had good prospects. But his party needed parliamentary defections in order to attract wider support, and these did not materialise. The SLD's adoption of the name "Liberal Democrats" in autumn 1989 encouraged most Liberals to remain in the party rather than leaving to join Meadowcroft's party. Since then, it has held a few dozen council seats consistently, and fought enough general election seats to secure broadcasting time, but has only very rarely won enough votes to qualify for a refund of the candidate's deposit. Its annual assembly seldom exceeds a hundred attendees.

Meadowcroft ceased to be President of the independent Liberal Party in 2002, and was succeeded by Councillor Mike Oborski. Spending most of his time abroad, he had been able to spend less and less time involved in running the party. He fought Leeds West for the Liberal Party in 1992, being narrowly beaten into fourth place by the Liberal Democrats, but has contested no subsequent elections. On 5 October 2007, it was announced that he had joined the Liberal Democrats.^[1]

Personal life

He is a traditional jazz clarinettist and saxophonist, and for some years led his own "Granny Lee’s All-Stars" troupe. He has also been a director of the Leeds Grand Theatre and Opera House.

He married Elizabeth Bee in 1987, and has a son, Andrew, and a daughter, Ruth, from his dissolved first marriage.

Consulting career

Meadowcroft was appointed a senior visiting fellow of the Policy Studies Institute in 1989, and became Chairman of the Electoral Reform Society. This coincided with the fall of the Iron Curtain and sudden demand for expertise in political campaigning and election organising in eastern Europe and the Third World. He set up ERS's international consultancy and has since been on forty-eight missions to thirty-five countries, assisting the transition to democracy, including Bosnia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Congo, Malawi, the Palestinian territories and Russia.

Publications

• "Success in Local Government" (1971)
• "Liberals and a Popular Front" (1974)
• "Bluffer’s Guide to Politics" (1976)
• "Liberal Values for a New Decade" (1980)
• "Social Democracy – Barrier or Bridge?" (1981)
• "Liberalism and the Left" (1982)
• "Liberalism and the Right" (1983)
• "Liberalism Today and Tomorrow" (1989)
• "The Case for the Liberal Party" (1992)
• "Focus on Freedom" (1997)

References

• Liberal History.org

1. ^ "Michael Meadowcroft joins Lib Dems". 2007-10-05. http://www.nigelashton.org.uk/news/000034/michael_meadowcroft_joins_lib_dems.html. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Michael Meadowcroft
• Michael Meadowcroft's personal website
• Catalogue of the Meadowcroft papers at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Joseph Dean	Member of Parliament for Leeds West 1983–1987	Succeeded by John Battle
Party political offices
Preceded by New position	President of the Liberal Party 1989–2005	Succeeded by Steve Radford

Persondata
Name	Meadowcroft, Michael
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	6 March 1942
Place of birth	Southport, UK
Date of death
Place of death