by John Mann

I was appointed by the unions in 1995 to co-ordinate the union links with the Labour Party and act as national union organiser for the 1997 General Election. Soon after starting David Evans was appointed regional director for the Labour Party in the North West.

Union organisation was coordinated regionally and union traditions and strength varied significantly across the countries.

By early agreement with Tony Blair and his General Secretary Tom Sawyer, the unions agreed to prioritise delivering Labour victories in Labours target 90 seats. In some strong union areas like the North West there were only four seats to target. In the North West there were more than a dozen, located in the smaller Lancashire town battlegrounds.

David Evans was at the heart of union involvement, but he had particular structural difficulties, more so than other regions.

The union heartlands were very strong, in Liverpool, Manchester, but also strong industrial towns around Ellesmere port, Widnes and St Helens, making the power bases of the unions the safe Labour  seats.

The North West tradition was locality, with key union figures providing people and money for those stronghold areas and with sitting MPs usually having very strong connections. Many were former union workplace convenors and part of the union powerbase themselves.

Evans had to negotiate through this, telling lifelong union activists and MPs that they would not get the level of support they had always relied on as it was being funnelled into the target seats. It was a battle for hearts and minds and skilled negotiations. Evans mastered both.

His complexity was exacerbated by the union regions themselves being very autonomous from national unions. In many parts of the country I could employ union Presidents and General Secretaries to smooth through a strategy that they had agreed. The North West was different.

The AEEU was run by Blair supporting Ken Jackson, but Manchester was an outpost for the old Communist linked left.  TGWU in Merseyside had opposed Bill Morris in his recent re-election. The GMB had two regions covering the North West and Ernie Hughes in the one covering Lancashire and most key seats was a law unto himself. Yet he and his political officer Gary Jones had by far the biggest regional autonomy and budget for expenditure. David Evans was the only person able to persuade them.

Evans cultivated the help of North West women leaders, Margaret Wall from MSF and Diana Jeuda from Usdaw, both of whom were significant players in Labour’s national executive, while Margaret Prosser of TGWU, Maggie Jones of Unison and Mary Turner of the GMB were hugely significant in the Labour power broking and key allies. Evans was deft in building these alliances.

This effort and Evans role in it were vital to Party chair Ian McCartney, who was fighting his own battles with Tony Blair’s office on the National Minimum wage, union rights and the desire by some to weaken the union role in the Party. In all these crucial battles, Evans supported the pro-union agenda- giving powerful platforms to McCartney and Prescott at crucial times and the national minimum wage road tour, which was pivotal in holding the alliance together, used the North West as its anchor.

Behind the scenes, Brian Dawson joint secretary of TULO and Bill Berry of Unison its North West chair worked hand-in-glove with David Evans to maximise union involvement and effectiveness.

From fundraising in Blackpool with Gordon Brown, the Black Dyke Mills band and Brian Glover, to teams door-knocking through CWU leadership In Rochdale, Unison in Bury or the GMB in Chester, Evans delivered all his target seats with consummate ease, indeed spreading the gains beyond the targets and into seats such as Lancaster and Morecambe.

David Evans political organising skills are widely recognised, but the lie needs nailing that he was in any way anti -union. The truth is exactly the opposite. Every Labour affiliated General Secretary of a union from 1997 knows the role that David Evans and TULO North West played, but I recall two who were particularly enthusiastic. Rodney Bickerstaffe highlighted the strength of the relationship in the North West to me immediately after the election and how important it was going forward, when he joined Ian McCartney on one of our platforms. And ironically, as it is Matt Wrack of the FBU, who I did not come across in my time, who lays the charge of hostility to the unions, Ken Cameron, the Morning Star supporting FBU leader of the time met with me regularly to assess FBU support. His union provided one lead coordinator, Jack Oade in Halifax, but he stressed to me the impact his union could have particularly on London and Scotland through their strong organisation there and Ken highlighted his perception that the union Labour links in the North West made involvement there particularly potent. That is the North West Labour Party, Director David Evans, North West TULO, joint secretary David Evans.

John Mann was Labour MP for Bassetlaw from 2001 to 2019 and is now a life peer in the House of Lords

Tags: 1997 general election, David Evans, Ian McCartney, John Mann, Keir Starmer, Labour general secretary, Tony Blair

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