Michael Foot served as leader of the Labour Party from November 1980 to October 1983.

Foot first entered parliament as part of Labour’s post-war 1945 general election landslide. A prominent figure on the left or “Bevanite” wing of the party, he stood as a candidate in the 1976 Labour leadership contest, placing second. He was rewarded with a spot in James Callaghan’s cabinet.

Foot, a forceful orator, succeeded Callaghan in 1980 and led Labour into the 1983 general election. The result – a Conservative landslide under Margaret Thatcher – represented Labour’s worst performance since 1935, with the party winning just 209 seats and 27.6% of the vote. Labour MP Gerald Kaufman famously described the 1983 Labour manifesto as “the longest suicide note in history”.

Foot presided over a period of deep division within Labour. His tenure as leader coincided with the Limehouse Declaration in 1981 and the formation of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), as leading moderate figures broke away from Labour. This schism reshaped the British political landscape in the immediate term, fragmenting the anti-Conservative vote in the early 1980s.

The longest-lived leader of a major British political party, Foot died at the age of 96 on 3 March 2010.

Leadership victory and SDP schism (1980-1981)

On 10 November 1980, Foot was elected leader of the Labour Party, securing a narrow victory over his main rival, Denis Healey, in the final ballot of Labour MPs.

Foot succeeded James Callaghan who had resigned earlier in the year, 18 months after the party’s 1979 general election defeat.

Healey, who served as chancellor of the exchequer from 1974 to 1979, was widely viewed as Callaghan’s likely heir, representing the social democratic right of the party. Possible rivals Roy Jenkins and Anthony Crosland were no longer in contention for the role. Jenkins had left parliament to serve as president of the European Commission in January 1977. Crosland died on 19 February 1977, aged 58.

Foot, aged 67, was firmly identified with the party left. But he was well-liked by Labour MPs and seen as capable of uniting the party. A non-tribal, conciliatory figure, he served loyally in both Harold Wilson and Callaghan’s cabinets – including as deputy leader since 1976. The white-haired socialist elder statesman hence emerged as a compromise candidate.

Foot was persuaded to stand in 1980 by allies in the party, having previously stated it was “most improbable” that he would run. Announcing his candidacy, Foot declared: “I would certainly be glad to be leader of the party when the present government is removed at the next election.”

He added: “I am in favour of peace in the Labour Party”.

The 1980 contest came as a schism widened within Labour between an insurgent, increasingly influential grassroots movement, often associated with Tony Benn, and the social democratic tradition associated with Callaghan and Healey. This divide would ultimately come to define Foot’s tenure as Labour leader.

Benn, who also stood in the 1976 leadership election, criticised those taking part in the contest. He argued that no election should take place until the party had agreed on a new method for choosing its leader. Delegates at Labour’s recent autumn conference called for a special gathering to agree these procedures. Denis Healey, meanwhile, was seen as a combative figure. He is said to have alienated natural supporters on the party right by taking them for granted. He warned the right of the Labour Party, represented by the Manifesto Group, that they had “nowhere else to go”.

The first ballot, held on 4 November, nevertheless showed Healey to be the clear frontrunner, securing 112 votes (42.3%) compared to Foot’s 83 votes (31.3%). The outcome of the second ballot was a surprise to many political commentators. Foot won by 139 votes to 129 – a margin of 10 votes. It came after the other two candidates, John Silkin (38 votes in the first ballot) and Peter Shore (32 votes), were eliminated.

Healey was subsequently elected unopposed to the post of deputy Labour leader.

It was later suggested that at least four Labour MPs, who were already considering the creation of a new party, had deliberately backed Foot in that election, calculating that his leadership would maximise the political space available for a centrist alternative.

Upon his election as Labour leader, Foot told a press conference that the party would “unite on the matters of supreme importance to us – economic policy, domestic policy – to attack the outrages and infamies which this government is inflicting on our people”. He insisted that he was as “strong in my socialist convictions as I have ever been”.

Foot, a founding member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), told reporters that unilateralism was “essential to the salvation of the world”. During the campaign, Foot had expressed opposition to the idea of stationing US missiles in Britain, declaring that he would “send them back” as prime minister.

Foot’s bookish and sometimes dishevelled appearance provided immediate ammunition for his opponents. Conservative MP Kenneth Baker welcomed Foot’s succession in 1980 with the remark: “Labour was led by Dixon of Dock Green under Jim Callaghan. Now it is led by Worzel Gummidge.”

Borrowing from Baker, Spitting Image (first broadcast in 1984) caricatured Foot as a scarecrow.

One Labour MP commented after Foot’s election: “A lot of us voted for Michael because we thought he was the most likely peacemaker. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to work.

“I fear that there’s still a good deal of bloodletting ahead.”

Grassroots pressure for procedural change culminated at the dramatic Wembley conference in January 1981. The leadership election procedure agreed by delegates apportioned the vote between the trade unions/affiliates (40%), the constituency parties (30%), and the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) (30%).

This vote represented the final impetus for the creation of the Social Democratic Party. The famous Limehouse Declaration (January 1981) was issued as an immediate reaction to the rule changes agreed at Labour’s Wembley conference. “The calamitous outcome of the Labour Party Wembley conference demands a new start in British politics”, the declaration began. “A handful of trade union leaders can now dictate the choice of a future prime minister.”

The declaration added: “We do not believe in the politics of an inert centre merely representing the lowest common denominator between two extremes.

“We want more, not less, radical change in our society, but with a greater stability of direction.”

The Limehouse Declaration directly precipitated the launch of the SDP two months later on 26 March. Over the course of 1981, 28 Labour MPs defected to the SDP – which now threatened to “break the mould” of British politics.

The SDP-Liberal Alliance won the Croydon North West by-election (October 1981), the Crosby by-election (November 1981), the Glasgow Hillhead by-election (March 1982), and the Bermondsey by-election (February 1983).

Bennism and the ‘donkey jacket’ controversy (1981)

In 1981, Tony Benn challenged Healey, the incumbent deputy leader, under the party’s new procedures. Benn secured an overwhelming majority of the constituency party vote (81.1%). Healey, however, won a commanding majority of the PLP (65.9%) and the heavily weighted trade union/affiliated bloc (62.5%). Overall, Healey prevailed by just 50.4% to 49.6% in the second ballot. It has been widely argued that a Benn victory would have strengthened the SDP’s case for a fundamental political realignment.

In November 1981, Foot announced he would not vote for Benn in the shadow cabinet elections, stating he could not trust him to uphold collective responsibility. The electorate for the shadow cabinet was, at the time, confined to the parliamentary Labour Party.

This announcement followed a commons debate on North Sea oil where two separate positions were set out by Labour frontbenchers. The party’s energy spokesperson, Merlyn Rees, opened the debate entirely on-message. He stated that a future Labour government would “restore the assets to public ownership on terms that will ensure that no private speculative gains are made at the nation’s expense”. Benn, closing the debate from the Labour frontbench, described the “reacquisition of public assets without compensation” as “the policy of the Labour Party”.

Foot described the situation as a “shambles”. He said that a commons debate “that should have concentrated our attack on the Tory policy about North Sea oil was transformed by Tony Benn into a quarrel about our own policy on the issue of compensation.”

Benn ultimately lost the 1981 shadow cabinet election. He had previously replaced Bill Rodgers, one of the “gang of four”, around the shadow cabinet table. However, the size of Benn’s vote among his PLP colleagues was reported as a “blow” to Foot.

Beyond the Labour Party, Foot was also depicted as insufficiently patriotic.

On 8 November 1981, Foot attended the annual National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph on Whitehall. His choice of outerwear – a greenish-brown tweed overcoat – was denigrated by the press as a “donkey jacket”. Foot’s fashion critics said his choice of coat revealed a lack of respect for the solemn remembrance service. A donkey jacket is a garment typically associated with manual labourers. But the reality of Foot’s fashion choices was not nearly as important as the political narrative they helped crystallise. The Labour leader’s ‘donkey jacket’ was, in fact, a luxury Jaeger overcoat purchased from Harrods by his wife, Jill Craigie. The Queen Mother even complimented Foot on his attire. “Why, Mr Foot, what an awfully nice coat”, she is reported to have said.

The “donkey jacket” scene ultimately provided one of the defining images of Foot’s ill-fated leadership of the Labour Party.

Foot was effective in his exchanges with Margaret Thatcher across the House of Commons despatch boxes.

In January 1982, after official figures revealed that unemployment in the United Kingdom had risen above three million for the first time since the 1930s, Foot asked if Thatcher understood “that, with her unemployment figures, 32 people are chasing every vacancy?”

Thatcher replied: “The only real answer to the right honourable gentleman is one that he will not accept, and it is that the consumer decides whether jobs go.”

Foot responded on behalf of the Labour Party when, on 2 April 1982, Argentine forces launched an invasion of the Falkland Islands. Addressing the House of Commons, he said that the people of the Falkland Islands had been “betrayed”, adding: “The responsibility for the betrayal rests with the government.”

The 74-day war that followed claimed the lives of 649 Argentine and 255 British servicemen, as well as three Falkland Islanders. The war ended on 14 June when the commander of the Argentine garrison at Port Stanley surrendered to British troops.

Michael Foot and the 1983 general election

Britain’s decisive victory in the Falklands War helped forge Thatcher’s reputation as the “Iron Lady”. Thatcher was previously regarded as one of the most unpopular prime ministers in history, having overseen rising unemployment and recession in her battle against inflation during her first years in office.

Foot led Labour into the 1983 general election on a left-wing platform that pledged unilateral nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from the European Economic Community (EEC), the abolition of the House of Lords, higher personal taxation for the rich, and a sweeping nationalisation programme. The party’s 1983 manifesto, entitled The New Hope for Britain, was famously described by one of its own MPs, Gerald Kaufman, as “the longest suicide note in history”.

The manifesto foreword, penned by Foot in his capacity as leader, stated: “We are the only party that offers a non-nuclear defence policy.”

Labour’s defence commitments proved especially difficult to sell to the electorate. Healey, the deputy leader, and Callaghan, the former Labour prime minister, both expressed misgivings about the party’s position. Foot was ultimately forced to modify the manifesto position, saying Labour would “move towards” a non-nuclear and the removal of nuclear bases.

During the campaign, Foot argued that another term of the “torments and evils” of Conservative rule would finish Britain as a great industrial nation.

Thatcher provided her own framing in a speech to a Scottish Conservative Party rally in Perth.

Thatcher declared: “The choice facing the nation is between two totally different ways of life. And what a prize we have to fight for: no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark, divisive clouds of Marxist socialism and bring together men and women from all walks of life who share a belief in freedom.”

In his final speech of the campaign, Foot stated: “Our philosophy is one of caring, of concern, of inviting the country to fight common problems. The Tories revere individualism and Victorian values.

“Our philosophy seeks cooperation with our allies in pursuit of peace. The Tories use a pose of national military grandeur to cover their increasing reliance on suicidal nuclear weapons.”

The 1983 general election ultimately resulted in a Conservative landslide under Thatcher. The party secured a parliamentary majority of 144 seats – the largest since Labour’s victory in 1945. Labour was reduced to just 209 seats (down 60), the party’s worst result since 1935. Its share of the vote – just 27.6% – was the lowest since 1918. Tony Benn was defeated in Bristol East, a seat he had held since 1963.

Significantly, the SDP-Liberal alliance secured 25.4% of the popular vote at the 1983 general election – a mere 2.2 points short of Labour. This yielded only 23 seats, but the split in the anti-Conservative vote allowed the Tories to win numerous seats on a minority vote share. Despite a slight fall in the Conservative vote share to 42.4%, therefore, Thatcher’s party gained 47 seats – finishing with a total of 397. The Sun newspaper referred to “Maggie’s Massacre”.

Foot responded: “I agree with those who said the fight to win the next election starts immediately and of course I accept, to the full, my responsibilities in this election.”

Foot’s resignation triggered the 1983 Labour leadership contest. Neil Kinnock, a Foot protégé, ultimately prevailed in a first-round landslide at the party’s conference in Brighton. Kinnock, aged 41, was the youngest leader in Labour’s history. Foot, by contrast, was 70 at the time of his resignation.

Foot reflected on his leadership of the Labour Party in an article for BBC News in 2000.

He wrote: “When it left office after Margaret Thatcher’s general election victory in 1979, more people – men and women – were in work than at any other period of our history. It was for reasons such as this that I urged and pleaded with James Callaghan to stay on as the party leader.

“He always had a very special appeal to the electorate, something that he was much better at than me…

“When Callaghan said that he was determined to go, I was asked to stand and take over as leader.

“A number of people asked me to stand and they came to my house and said that they believed that I had a better chance of holding the party together than many of the others.”

In her memoirs, The Downing Street Years, published 1993, Thatcher wrote that “Michael Foot is a highly principled and cultivated man, invariably courteous in our dealings. In debate and on the platform he has a kind of genius.”

Michael Foot: late political career and retirement

Foot was the oldest sitting British MP from 1987 to 1992. He remained a prominent member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Foot stood down from parliament at the 1992 general election. He consistently rejected offers of honours, including a knighthood and a peerage.

In 2003, Foot celebrated his 90th birthday with Tony Blair at a party at Downing Street.

At the time, Foot further reflected on his leadership, telling BBC News: “It was touch and go whether the party was going to be wrecked prior to 1983 – and the wrecking was not done by the left.

“Much more dangerous than what the left was up to were the actions of Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and co.”

Death and tributes

Foot died at his home in Hampstead, London, on 3 March 2010 at the age of 96.

Jack Straw, the justice secretary, informed the House of Commons of the news shortly after prime minister’s questions (PMQs) at 12:33pm.

Straw said: “I am sure that that news will be received with great sadness, not only by my party, but across the country. Those of us who knew Michael Foot will have a great many memories of him.”

Gordon Brown, the prime minister, described Foot as “an indomitable figure who always stood up for his beliefs and whether people agreed with him or not they admired his character and his steadfastness.”

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said: “Michael Foot led a remarkable life. I remember meeting him on the Tube in the ’80s; for a famous speaker he really listened.”

David Cameron, the Conservative leader of the opposition, said: “He was a very intelligent, witty, amusing and thoughtful man. Obviously it is very sad news that he died today. He had an extraordinary life but they will be mourning the death of a remarkable man.”

Tony Benn, Foot’s former cabinet colleague, said: “He was one of the great figures of the Labour movement.”

In 2018, leading Labour figures Jeremy Corbyn, Neil Kinnock and John McDonnell were among those who rubbished claims that Foot was a paid Soviet informant. Kinnock said his predecessor had been a “passionate and continual critic of the Soviet Union”. Foot successfully sued the Sunday Times when similar allegations were published in 1995.

Michael Foot: rise to prominence

Foot first stood for parliament at the 1935 general election as the Labour candidate for Monmouth, placing second with 13,454 votes (36.6%). He was elected to the House of Commons as the MP for Plymouth Devonport in 1945, holding the seat until the 1955 general election.

Foot rose to prominence in parliament as a leading “Bevanite” – the wing of the Labour Party allied to Aneurin “Nye” Bevan.

However, Foot broke with Bevan over his October 1957 address to Labour conference, in which the shadow foreign secretary called for the maintenance of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. The anti-unilateralist address, seen as a volte-face, stunned and angered his Bevanite disciples. In the speech’s most famous passage, Bevan said unilateralism would send a British foreign secretary “naked into the conference chamber.”

In November 1957, Foot was among the founding members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Foot also played a prominent role in the Labour Party’s adoption of unilateralism at its 1960 Scarborough conference.

Foot returned to parliament at a by-election in Ebbw Vale in 1960, following the death of Bevan and a reconciliation between the two figures. Bevan urged Foot to succeed him as the MP for Ebbw Vale.

Foot later completed a biography of Bevan, his mentor, published in two volumes in 1962 and 1973.

Foot had the Labour whip withdrawn in March 1961 after rebelling against the leadership over Royal Air Force estimates. The whip was restored in 1963 after Harold Wilson’s election as leader of the Labour Party.

Foot challenged James Callaghan for the post of treasurer of the Labour Party in 1967, but was unsuccessful. He served in the second Wilson shadow cabinet in various roles between 1970 and 1974.

Foot stood in the 1970 and 1971 Labour deputy leadership contests, losing to Roy Jenkins on both occasions. Foot was also a candidate in the 1972 Labour deputy leadership contest, triggered by Jenkins’ resignation. Foot won 116 votes on the second ballot, narrowly losing to Edward Short (145).

Following the February 1974 general election, which resulted in a minority Labour government, Foot was appointed as secretary of state for employment. Labour’s manifesto had touted a “social contract” with the trade unions that would define its approach to industrial relations. Within days of taking office, Foot, the new employment secretary, settled the miners’ pay claim – ending the strike action that had throttled Edward Heath’s Conservative government. On 6 March 1974, the coal miners called off their four-week strike after accepting a wage increase of 35% – more than double the amount offered under Heath’s government.

As employment secretary, Foot was also responsible for the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974 and the Employment Protection Act 1975.

Foot, a member of the Labour Party’s eurosceptic tendency, was a prominent “No” campaigner during the 1975 referendum on British membership of the Common Market.

In April 1975, Foot addressed a special Labour conference convened to settle the party’s position on Europe ahead of the referendum. In his contribution, Foot suggested that high unemployment figures were the fault of the Common Market. “I read these figures with horror and with shame”, he said. “These are figures we have to have before us every day of our political lives.”

Foot added: “I want to see every instrument available at our command for dealing with unemployment here and now.”

Foot received a standing ovation, and Labour delegates voted decisively in favour of withdrawal. The eurosceptic position was carried by 3,724,000 votes to 1,986,000 – almost a 2:1 margin.

Foot stood as a candidate in the 1976 Labour leadership contest, triggered by Wilson’s resignation as prime minister. He placed a strong second, securing the support of 139 MPs in the second and final ballot. He secured a plurality of votes on the first ballot (90), before Callaghan edged him out. He served as deputy leader of the Labour Party and leader of the House of Commons from 1976 to 1979.

Foot defeated Shirley Williams in the 1976 deputy leadership contest with the support of 166 Labour MPs (56.6%). This meant Foot stood in four consecutive Labour deputy leadership elections from 1970 to 1976.

As leader of the House of Commons, Foot presided over the joint consultative committee created under the Lib-Lab pact. The agreement, which helped prop up the Callaghan government, ended in the summer of 1978, after 15 months, depriving the government of 13 crucial parliamentary votes.

Foot’s oratorical abilities were on full display when, as leader of the commons, he closed the “no-confidence” debate that ultimately precipitated the 1979 general election. His contribution featured the famous description of Liberal leader David Steel, as a politician who had “passed from rising hope to elder statesman without any intervening period whatsoever”.

Early life and background

Michael Mackintosh Foot was born on 23 July 1913 in Plymouth, Devon. His father, Isaac Foot, was a solicitor, and served as a Liberal MP and a lord mayor of Plymouth.

Foot attended Plymouth College Preparatory School, Forres School in Swanage and Leighton Park School in Reading. He studied philosophy, politics and economics at Wadham College, Oxford, graduating in 1934. During his time at university, Foot served as president of the Oxford Union.

Foot took a job as a shipping clerk in Birkenhead after graduating.

He became a journalist, working for the New Statesman and Tribune. He later worked as a writer and editor for the Evening Standard and the Daily Herald.

In 1940, under the pseudonym “Cato”, Foot co-authored the book Guilty Men, which vehemently attacked the policy of appeasement.

Personal life

Foot was married to Jill Craigie, a film-maker, author, and feminist historian, from 1949 until her death in 1999. They had no children.

In 2007, it was revealed that Foot had an extramarital affair in the early 1970s.

Foot was a passionate supporter of Plymouth Argyle Football Club, and served as a director of the club.

Foot was an atheist.

Trivia

For his 90th birthday in 2003, Foot was registered with the Football League as an honorary player for Plymouth Argyle and given the shirt number 90.