Ian Lavery Ian Lavery Ian Lavery (born 6 January 1963) is a British Labour Party politician and former trade union leader from Northumberland who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wansbeck since the 2010 general election. Born and raised in Ashington, Lavery began work in the construction industry after leaving school before becoming a mining apprentice. Noted for being the sole apprentice to refuse to work during the miners' strike of 1984-1985, he gradually rose up the ranks of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and was chosen to succeed Arthur Scargill as NUM President in 2002. Once elected to
Far-left politics in the United Kingdom level could be developed to aid the National Union of Mineworkers. Although the Soviet Union did provide some assistance, NUM president Arthur Scargill tended to the Labour left, rather than the far-left. More successful for a time during the 1980s, were the gains of Trotskyist entrism from Ted Grant and Peter Taaffe's Militant tendency. Working within the Labour Party, they were able to get Terry Fields, Dave Nellist and Pat Wall elected as MPs, as well as having major influence over Liverpool City Council, until Neil Kinnock moved to shut them down. The dissolution of the Soviet Union; the world's