Bernie Grant - Biography

Biography

Bernie Grant was born in Georgetown, Guyana, to schoolteacher parents, who in 1963 took up the British government's offer to let people from colonies move to the UK to do blue-collar work. Grant attended Tottenham technical college, and went on to take a degree course in mining engineering at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh.

In the mid-1960s he was for a period a member of the Socialist Labour League. He quickly became a trade union official, and moved into politics, becoming a Labour councillor in the London Borough of Haringey in 1978.

When the Conservative government introduced "rate capping", Grant led the fight against it in the borough. This split the local Labour party, but through this split Grant became the Borough of Haringey leader in 1985.

He took control of the rebuilding project of Alexandra Palace which had been partially destroyed in a fire. The project had £15 million in cash, but the lack of financial control saw this surplus turn into deficit and interest payments eventually took the debt to a total of £80 million.

As Council leader during the Broadwater Farm riot of 1985, in which a policeman, PC Blakelock, was murdered, he was brought into the national eye. He was widely quoted as saying: "What the police got was a bloody good hiding." Grant claimed he had been taken out of context, but offered an apology to the family of PC Blakelock. A fuller version of the quotation is "The youths around here believe the police were to blame for what happened on Sunday and what they got was a bloody good hiding." His comments brought swift denunciation from the Labour Party leadership and the then Conservative Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, called him "the high priest of conflict" and several British newspapers dubbed him "Barmy Bernie". He claimed that he was merely explaining to a wider audience what the feeling on the estate was like. There is conflicting information whether Grant condemned the violence of the rioters the following day.

The controversy, however, did not prevent him becoming MP for Tottenham in the 1987 election, one of only three black MPs at the time. He later stood for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party.

In 1989, Grant established and chaired the Parliamentary Black Caucus, modeled after the Congressional Black Caucus of the United States. The organization was committed to advancing the opportunities of Britain's ethnic minority communities.

He was associated with the Socialist Campaign Group, and spoke out against police racism. He was married three times, living with his last wife in Muswell Hill. He died from a heart attack on 8 April 2000, aged 56. His funeral procession on 18 April passed through Tottenham towards a service at Alexandra Palace, pausing as it passed the Broadwater Farm estate. According to reports, an estimated 3,000 people...turned out to salute the black radical. There were dancers and singers, a Highland piper and African drums. Also present were home secretary Jack Straw, Chris Smith, culture secretary, Clare Short, minister for international development, and Paul Boateng and Keith Vaz, Britain's most senior black ministers."