Dick Taverne’s brief moment of political fame – or notoriety – came in 1973 when he beat Labour, the party for which he had been an MP, in a byelection in his own Lincoln constituency. It served as a precursor of the Labour party’s internecine 1980s strife and an early indication of the divisions that Europe has continued to cause in British political life.
Taverne, who has died aged 97, fell out spectacularly with a leftwing faction of the local party in Lincoln, where he had been the Labour MP for a decade, over his support for Britain’s entry into the Common Market. He was deselected, but instead of quietly serving out his term he resigned, stood as a Democratic Labour candidate and won a spectacular byelection victory despite a heavyweight campaign by the national leadership to defeat him.
