Geoffrey Lawler - 1983 Election

1983 Election

The election in Bradford North was one of the more high profile as the local Constituency Labour Party had deselected the sitting MP Ben Ford; Ford then stood as an Independent Labour candidate to try to keep his seat. His replacement as Labour candidate, Pat Wall, was a founder of the Militant tendency, and when Labour Party leader Michael Foot visited to support him, full-page newspaper adverts placed by the Conservative Party reprinted part of a speech in which Wall had declared that a Marxist Labour government, on coming to office "will face bloodshed. We will face the possibility of civil war and the terrible death and destruction and bloodshed that would mean". In addition, the SDP candidate Peter Birkby was a well known former Labour agent.

At the end of the campaign, Michael Foot was challenged by Robin Day in a televised interview to say whether he would back Pat Wall or Ben Ford. Foot replied "I'm not going to answer in that way". When the votes were counted, Lawler was declared elected with a majority of 1,602 over Pat Wall; he had won with only 34.3% of the vote but with the twelfth biggest swing to the Conservatives in Britain. Lawler became the first Conservative to win a Parliamentary seat in Bradford since 1970. He later declared that he had not expected to win.