Why I am a Socialist?

Gary Fraser talks to life long socialist campaigner Anne Edmonds about her involvement in the socialist movement.

Gary: How long have you been active in the socialist movement?

Anne: I joined the Labour Party when I was just sixteen years old back in 1949.

The Labour Party had just come to power and was making a genuine attempt at changing people lives. For the first time opportunities were becoming available to working class people. This was after all a government that laid the foundations of the welfare state. Universal health care for everyone, council housing, and education-when you look back it was a very inspiring time. I was a member of the Labour League of Youth and my branch was very much on the left of the party.

Gary: What made you become a socialist?

Anne: I don’t come from a left wing background. In actual fact my mother was a working class Tory from Devonshire. She was a servant and like many of the other girls in the area she worked for the local ‘big wigs’. My father was a Liberal voter; he was a one man band self-employed window cleaner so I had no trade union connection either. I believe this to be a strange start in life for a left winger.

But I guess I became a socialist because I saw the huge differences that the first Labour government had made. My politics have always been pragmatic. I wouldn’t describe myself as ideological.

My first husband was a Labour MP between 1966 and 1970. As consequence, I was able to meet many influential people on the left at that time. People like Konni Zilliacus, Ian Mikardo, Judith Hart (MP for Lanark), Fenner Brockway (a pacifist MP) and Michael Foot, who I must say was the best speaker I have ever heard, and also one of the nicest people you could imagine.

Gary: What are some of the campaigns you have been involved in?

Anne: I have been involved in many campaigns over the years. Obviously I was a member of CND and also a founder member of the anti-apartheid campaign against South Africa. This was back in the 1950s and you have to remember that this was at a time when Mandela was still called a terrorist by some.

I recall being on the anti-Suez demo in 1956 and I was living in Cambridge at the time. I saw a group of drunken Yuppies (whom we called young gentlemen then) put a lit firework into the petrol tank of the anti-Suez people’s coach. Fortunately it went out.

I was also at the famous Grosvenor Square demonstration in London protesting against the Vietnam War.  I had my child with me, who was in a push chair, so I made sure that I kept well away from all of the trouble.

In later years I was very active in the Anti-Poll Tax campaign and was the Secretary of Morningside Anti-Poll Tax League in Edinburgh.

I am also involved in the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and a member CABU (the Council for Arab British Understanding) which was, and still is, an anti-Zionist campaign.   

Gary: What issues are you passionate about?

Anne: There are so many. But in particular I have always felt very strongly about people’s right to council housing.

When I was young I was involved in the campaign for free public transport and even back then was encouraging people to use their cars less. I was always very passionate about the environment.

And of course the terrible suffering of the Palestinian people is an issue that moves me greatly which is of course why I am involved in the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Gary: Have your politics changed in any ways over the years?

Anne: I left the Labour Party six weeks after the election victory in 1997. I never liked Tony Blair and the whole New Labour project was one of the main reasons for me leaving. Even though I was in the Labour Party for all these years I never received any acknowledgement that I was leaving.  This was typical New Labour arrogance. They obviously wanted rid of people like me. I guess the old cliché that ‘Labour left me I didn’t leave Labour’ is probably true of me. But my politics have not really changed all that much over the years. In fact I would say that I get more radical as I get older. My experience of both the Tories and New Labour has convinced me all the more of why we need radical change. 

Gary: Which individuals have inspired you in politics?

Anne: To be honest I’m surprised you have asked me that question. There have been many people whom I have admired but I guess I have always been self inspired. I realised that I was good at passing exams and could see that university would give me a better life than my parents had in their youth.

Gary: Some people say that socialism is thing of the past, that we are all selfish nowadays and that there is no such thing as ideology-what do you make of these statements?

Anne: I think people have been made selfish by capitalism but that doesn’t mean that they cannot change or that we cannot have a fairer and more equal society. In regards to ideology, well you know that I am not the most ideological of people, but for me it just seems so obvious that socialism is the best way forward.