Arthur William John Lewis (21 February 1917 - 25 June 1998) was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Labour

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 politician.

Biography

Lewis was educated at Borough Polytechnic and began work as a fitter with the City of London Corporation. He was an official of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers 1938-48. He signed the first trade union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

 agreement with the catering

Catering

Catering is the business of providing foodservice at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, public house , or other location.-Mobile catering:A mobile caterer serves food directly from a vehicle or cart that is designed for the purpose...

 industry and gained 20,000 new trade union members in the West End, London.

Lewis was Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for Upton

Upton (UK Parliament constituency)

Upton was a parliamentary constituency in the Borough of West Ham in the South-West of Essex , which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system.The constituency was created for the 1918...

 from 1945 to 1950, for West Ham North

West Ham North (UK Parliament constituency)

West Ham North was a borough constituency in the County Borough of West Ham, in what was then Essex but is now Greater London. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first-past-the-post voting system.- History :The...

 from 1950 to 1974, and then for Newham North West

Newham North West (UK Parliament constituency)

Newham North West was a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, in the London Borough of Newham. It returned one Member of Parliament, elected by the first past the post system.-History:...

.

In 1983, after 38 years as an MP, Lewis was deselected as Labour candidate by his local constituency Labour Party, which he said had become "100 per cent Trotskyist, Militant Tendency

Militant Tendency

The Militant tendency was an entrist group within the British Labour Party based around the Militant newspaper that was first published in 1964...

, Communist and IRA

Provisional Irish Republican Army

The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...

 [Provisional Irish Republican Army] supporters." By this time he was refusing to attend local party meetings or hold "advice surgeries" for his constituents.

He was replaced as Labour candidate by future minister Tony Banks

Tony Banks, Baron Stratford

Anthony Louis Banks, Baron Stratford was a British Labour Party politician, who was a Member of Parliament from 1983 to 2005, before being made a Member of the House of Lords. In government, he served for two years as Minister for Sport...

. Lewis stood as an Independent Labour candidate at the 1983 election, coming fourth with 11% of the vote behind the winner, Banks.