Philip Piratin was born in London on 15th
May, 1907. Educated at a London County Council Elementary School he
became active in politics and joined the Communist
Party.
In
1932 Oswald
Mosley established
the British Union of Fascists (BUF). By
1934 Mosley was expressing strong anti-Semitic views and provocative
marches through Jewish districts. Piratin
played a leading role in protecting Jewish people living in these
areas. In 1936 a quarter of a million people stopped Mosley’s
party marching through the East End.
The
government now became involved and passed the Public
Order Act that made the wearing of political uniforms and private
armies illegal, using threatening and abusive words a criminal offence,
and gave the Home Secretary the powers to ban marches, completely
undermined the activities of the BUF.
Piratin
was also a leading figure in the
Stepney Tenants Defence League, an organization where the tenants
living in bad houses were being involved in a fight to get the repairs
done and the rents reduced. Phil Piratin later wrote, "Tens of
thousands of working class men and women had organized themselves
for common struggle. Committees were formed, and hundreds of people
who had never been on a committee and had no experience of organization
or politics learned those things, and learned them well. Outstanding
were the women. Every feminist claim was proved right. They were more
enthusiastic, and hence more reliable. It was the women who did most
of the picketing."
Piratin
was
elected to represent Stepney in the 1945 General
Election. In the House of Commons Piratin
associated with a group of left-wing members that included William
Gallacher, John Platts-Mills, Konni
Zilliacus,
Lester Hutchinson, Ian
Mikardo, Barbara
Castle, Sydney
Silverman, Geoffrey Bing, Emrys
Hughes, D. N. Pritt, Leslie
Solley,
William
Gallacher and
William Warbey.
Piratin's opposition to
the Cold War and the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
made him an unpopular figure in post-war England and he was defeated
when he stood at Stepney in the 1950 General
Election.
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