East Ham Parliamentary Area (1938)

Party News from the August 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

In the late 1930s, it was the intention of the East Ham branch of the SPGB to contest the East Ham North parliamentary constituency at the forthcoming General Election and, as evidenced above, serious and systematic activity was undertaken to target the area with socialist propaganda. Frank Grainger was selected as a  Party candidate - only to be replaced later by Clifford Groves when he dropped out of Party activity - and a General Election would have been held in 1940 at the latest. However, war intervened and the next General Election did not take place until 1945, by which time the SPGB had switched their attentions to Paddington North in West London, where Clifford Groves had the honour of being the first SPGB parliamentary candidate.

The SPGB did eventually contest the East Ham South parliamentary constituency when Harry Young was the  party's candidate at the 1950 General Election.