Phil Piratin

Philip Piratin (15 May 1907 – 10 December 1995), known as Phil Piratin, was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and one of their few Members of Parliament.

Piratin was the son of a small local tradesman. He became a Communist activist, anti-fascist and defender of tenants' rights, a leading member of the Stepney Tenants Defence League. A Jew himself, he was a leader of the opposition to Oswald Mosley's anti-semitism and his British Union of Fascists' marches through East London. Piratin was elected to Stepney Borough Council in 1937 and was Chairman of the borough's Communist Party. During World War II, he gained further notoriety by leading 100 people to shelter in a London Underground station, a practice which then became widespread.

Piratin was elected at the 1945 General Election as Member of Parliament (MP) for Mile End in Stepney, becoming one of the last two CPGB MPs. In Parliament, he worked with several left-wing Labour MPs, some of whom would be expelled by their party as crypto-communists and form the Labour Independent Group. He was defeated when he stood for re-election in 1950 in Stepney (Mile End having suffered extensive boundary changes).

Publications

*Phil Piratin; "Our Flag Stays Red", Thames, London (1948).

ee also

*List of British Jews