John Platts-Mills was
born in New
Zealand on 4th October, 1906. After graduating with a first-class
law degree in 1927 at Victoria University he won a Rhodes scholarship
to Balliol College, Oxford.
He worked
as a lawyer in London after 1932. He joined
the Labour Party in 1936 and was active
in anti-fascist activities during the Spanish
Civil War.
On the
outbreak of the Second World War he joined the
Royal
Air Force but
after a few months was told that his services "were no longer
required". It is assumed that MI5 objected to Platts-Mills involvement
with pro-communist groups in Britain. However, attitudes towards him
changed when the Soviet Union joined the
war against Nazi Germany. Over the
next couple of years Platts-Mills helped establish Soviet friendship
committees all over Britain.
In 1944
Platts-Mills volunteered to become a miner and worked for the next
18 months in a Yorkshire pit. In the 1945 General
Election Platts-Mills was elected to represent Finsbury in London.
In the
House of Commons Platts-Mills emerged as
one of the leaders of the left-wing. He was president of the Haldane
Society, and a member of the British-Soviet Friendship Society, the
Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR and the National Council
of Civil Liberties.
Platts-Mills
opposition to NATO and his claims that the
United States had too much power in Europe brought
him into conflict with the leadership of the Labour
Party.
In April
1948 Platts-Mills organised a petition in support of Pietro
Nenni and the Italian Socialist Party in its general election
campaign. He gained support from 27 other MPs including Konni
Zilliacus,
Geoffrey
Bing and William Warbey.
This went against government policy and Platts-Mills was expelled
from the party
and in the 1950 General Election he lost
his seat.
He returned
to work as a lawyer and established himself as one of Britain's leading
barristers. John
Platts-Mills died
on 26th October 2001.
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