Labour's first black MP

Eddie Tucker reviews Comrade Sak by Marc Wadsworth, Peepal Tree Press, £9.99.

Sharpurji Saklatvala was the first black Labour MP - and also a member of the Communist Party, when joint membership was allowed for a short period in the 1920s. Marc Wadsworth's political biography is written from the angle of a black activist in today's labour movement. And its sharpness and clear parallels with present times comes in large part from Wadsworth's role as a key player in the formation of Labour Party Black Sections in the early 1980s.

Saklat-vala's role as an MP is almost unrecognisable today, mixing agitation among the working class of his Battersea constituency with an active role in the Indian independence movement and as a champion of African and Asian unity. The Communists, in general, and Saklatvala, in particular, became a thorn in the side of the Labour leadership and the 1924 General Election was to be Sak's last as a Labour candidate. He subsequently lost his seat when standing as a Communist in 1929 but remained active in the movement in Britain and internationally.

Authoritative books on the history of black people in the British labour movement are few and far between; ones written from a political rather than academic angle even rarer. And if little is known about Sak, what is known about one of his right-hand men, John Archer, elected in 1913 as Britain's first black mayor? Wadsworth's book is inspiring in bringing to life not just the actions of Comrade Sak - in a critical way when necessary - but in tracing the radical history of the left and the unions in early twentieth century Battersea. Socialists in the Labour Party can learn much from it.

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