Constituency : Hayes and Harlington 1971-81 ( Labour ), 1981-3 ( SDP)
Neville was the only one of the initial crop of defectors who was at serious risk of deselection in his constituency and therefore the least surprising convert. David owen described him as "the firmest and clearest of us all having believed that a break was inevitable some time before I and others came round to his way of thinking".
Neville was the son of a wealthy Jewish lawyer . He was educated at Westminster School and Cambridge. He became a barrister and director of a publishing company. He also spent some time as a TV producer.He was elected to the LCC in 1952. He achieved notoriety as a perennial losing candidate candidate in 6 different seats between 1950 and his eventual success in a by-election in 1971. He was respected by the Tories as a tenacious opponent who fought a clean fight. When he got into Parliament he was noted for heckling his own colleagues when he disagreed with their point. He was a pro-EEC rebel in 197 and a founder member and treasurer of the Manifesto Group..
Neville soon fell out with his local party. which included John McDonnell. Neville courted the press and presented the "battle in Hayes" as a left-right struggle. However that wasn't the full story. The ostentatious Jewish barrister wasn't a great fit for a constituency of working class Irish Catholics. He also lost a lot of money holding oil shares and had to work hard at the Bar to compensate, neglecting constituency duties. He helped Reg Prentice in his battle against deselection which further angered local activists. When someone wrote to him at the Commons asking the question "are you too posh to come to your constituency? " , he received the letter back marked "Not known at this address". McDonnell complained tha "He can't understand the grassroots trade union activist. We want a strong-minded activist who can act as a focus for our campaigns".Neville had made enquiries about joining the Liberals in 1980. That year he co-ordinated a group of seven rightwingers who voted for Michael Foot rather than Dennis Healey to damage the party.
Neville was pushed into third place in 1983. Before the 1987 election he published a list of seats where Alliance supporters should vote tactfully for the Tory to keep out Labour though it included Bath, a prime Liberal target which Labour had no chance of winning. He subsequently dismissed the SDP as a "middle class elite" who believed they could talk their way into power.. He became president of the Radical Society, hobnobbing with the likes of Norman Tebbitt. He divided his time between legal work and public affairs consultant. He rejoined Labour in 1996.
He died in 2002, aged 78.
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