John Faithful Fortescue Platts MILLS\Janet CREE

John Platts-Mills
30 October 2001
John Faithful Fortescue Platts-Mills, barrister: born Karori, New Zealand
4 October 1906; called to the Bar, Inner Temple 1933, Bencher 1970; MP
(Labour) for Finsbury 1945-48; MP (Labour Independent) for Finsbury
1948-50; QC 1964; married 1936 Janet Cree (died 1992; six sons); died
Epsom, Surrey 26 October 2001.

He was expelled from the Labour Party in 1948, and remained in the cold
for 21 years, yet John Platts-Mills was respected as one of the great
oaks of the Old Left. He was a fascinating and complex character who
destroyed his political career with a series of misjudgements.

The public profile of this extraordinary and mysterious figure had
remained dormant for more than 40 years until one morning in March 1990
when the Daily Mirror revealed that he had acted as an envoy for the
militant miners' leader Arthur Scargill. His mission: fly to Tripoli to
persuade the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to donate millions to
the hardship fund of Britain's striking miners. An extreme left-wing QC?
Did Britain really possess such an animal at the Bar?

The answer was Yes. The New Zealand-born Platts-Mills, an admitted "scab"
and seamen's strike-breaker at 16, had become a British-based socialist
fundamentalist once he reached physical maturity. He supported
revolutionary causes, which he preferred to call "progressive causes",
world-wide and had jumped at the chance of helping the National Union of
Mineworkers during the bitter coal strike of 1984-85. His involvement had
been kept a closely guarded secret for six years by Scargill, who had not
even informed his own national executive because of the embarrassment
this would have caused inside and outside the union.

While the coal dispute was in progress a young policewoman, Yvonne
Fletcher, had been shot dead by the Libyans outside their London
legation. Nobody was ever brought to justice for this crime and the
Libyan envoys were allowed to leave without facing criminal charges. Such
events rarely bother committed revolutionaries or their supporters and
Platts-Mills was no exception to this unwritten rule.

He accepted the request from Scargill willingly and never saw any reason
to apologise for his actions. He had already visited Moscow twice during
the miners' strike trying to get money out of the Russians for the NUM,
so asking Gaddafi for financial assistance was no great problem,
particularly as Platts-Mills was well known to the Libyans as a supporter
of their regime. When the story of his involvement emerged, he at first
denied it to save Scargill's face.

He admitted that a tape-recorded interview in the hands of the Mirror
Group, detailing his Libyan connection, was genuine. He had been
blissfully unaware that his telephone conversation with the former NUM
chief executive Roger Windsor, confirming his role as emissary, had been
taped by reporters. He immediately offered his resignation as President
of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers but this was refused.

Platts-Mills continued to practise as a barrister backing left-wing
causes and he returned to the relative obscurity of the Inner Temple. His
life, however, was far from dull. He was an extremely charming man who
could appear intelligent and naļve in the same conversation and did not
appear to have an evil thought in his body. Politically, however, he was
a rogue elephant – a teenage revolutionary who never grew up. Some
colleagues dismissed him as an "old Trot". It was a lawyer, in fact, who
had informed the press of Platts-Mills's mission to Libya.

He was born in a wheelbarrow in Karori, in Wellington, New Zealand, in
1906 after his mother, only the fifth woman doctor in New Zealand, had
blown a whistle to attract attention while climbing a hill trying to
induce the birth. He was his parents' third and last child. Because of
his bulk – 12lb – his mother decided enough was enough. His father was
John Mills and his mother's maiden name was Daisy Platts. His mother, a
defender of women's rights, called herself Platts-Mills for professional
reasons and ensured that the children were also called Platts-Mills. John
Platts-Mills knew both wealth and poverty as a youngster because his
father was somewhat irresponsible with money. The young John became a boy
scout, head boy and an outstanding athlete as a teenager and tried hard
at everything "because I had no particular skill".

He studied law at Victoria University College, Wellington, after dropping
medicine and represented the university at rugby, boxing, rowing,
athletics and debating. In 1928 he won a Rhodes Scholarship to Balliol
College, Oxford, and learned to fly, joining the OU Air Squadron. He was
selected for the 1931 Boat Race but dropped from the final crew after
straining a muscle while showing off.

In 1932 he was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple and flirted with the
English Mistery – Fascist lawyers on the fringe of the Conservative
Party. He refused an offer of a safe Tory seat at Eastbourne because "it
seemed wrong as I didn't know the town". In 1936 he married the artist
Janet Cree. Immediately after the honeymoon he joined the Finsbury Labour
Party and involved himself in local and national politics, including
fund-raising for the Spanish Republicans. He worked for the National
Council for Civil Liberties and joined the Haldane Society of Socialist
Lawyers.

He spent several months as a pilot in the RAF Reserve but never flew with
them as his licence was insufficient for the RAF and he was too old for
further training. He was trained for a specific post at bomber command
headquarters but was posted to Aden without explanation. He said they had
wanted him out of the way because of his politics ("premature
anti-Fascists" were regarded as potential traitors) and refused to go. He
was allowed to resign from the RAF and was refused enrolment in the Royal
Navy and Army, claiming years later that an MI5 file on him "contained
the usual rubbish".

In October 1941 Churchill asked Platts-Mills to drum up propaganda
support for the Soviets who overnight had to be translated from ruthless
Bolshevik hordes into gallant allies fighting the tyranny of Fascism.
Platts-Mills founded the Anglo-Soviet Youth Friendship Alliance to work
with teenagers. ln March 1944 he began looking for a parliamentary seat,
missed out on King's Norton, and in July 1944 began training in the
Yorkshire coalfields as an over-age "Bevin Boy".

ln November 1944 he was adopted as prospective Labour candidate for
Finsbury and won the seat in 1945. Unfortunately for Labour, he was the
classic "Communist fellow traveller" at a time when it was socially
fashionable among some intellectuals to support Communism. He asked all
the awkward questions in Parliament, hired a Communist Party member as
his clerk and became a huge embarrassment to the Labour Party.

Platts-Mills soon gained a reputation as a crypto-Communist for the
ferocity of his attacks on the pro-American policies of the Foreign
Secretary Ernest Bevin. He was naļve enough to send a telegram of support
to Pietro Nenni, the Italian socialist who was fighting the 1948 Italian
elections for a coalition of socialists and Communists. So Labour, with
its unholy fear of Communist associations, expelled him in 1948. A Labour
government as sensitive as that one could scarcely tolerate a
back-bencher who was perpetually sniping at its support for the Americans.

He was one of a group of Labour MPs in that Attlee government who argued
that it should align with Stalinist Russia against the United States. Not
surprisingly, he was detested by Bevin, who worried that British
socialism might be confused or identified with Stalinism.

In 1950 Platts-Mills sank from politics after failing to win his Finsbury
seat as an independent Labour candidate. But in following years his name
was attached to every Anglo-Eastern friendship organisation formed and he
helped found the World Peace Movement. He visited every country on the
other side of the Iron Curtain and attended Stalin's funeral in 1953 on
behalf of the British Peace Council, appearing to believe that something
approaching total truth was lodged in Moscow. He doubled as a minor
impresario, organising Red Star concerts for Soviets at the Royal
Festival Hall.

He was readmitted to the Labour Party in 1969 after strings were pulled
by the late NUM President Joe Gormley and in spite of resistance – from
Jim Callaghan. He devoted the remainder of his life to his legal work and
friends confided that he had lost thousands of pounds in unpaid briefs.
They said he could never have become a judge himself, because he lacked
judgement. Yet he was regarded as an automatic choice to lead defences in
the Richardson torture trial and Ronnie Kray cases and he appeared at the
appeal of one of the Great Train Robbers, Thomas Wisbey.

He backed the jailed building worker Des Warren and the Shrewsbury
pickets when – he said for political reasons – the Government ordered a
prosecution against the advice of the police and the Director of Public
Prosecutions. He took several IRA cases between 1969 and 1976, chaired an
independent inquiry into the prison system after the Hull prison riot in
1976 and set up a committee of inquiry into the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon and the Sabra and Chatila refugee camp massacres.

He bought a luxury farmhouse in Surrey, owned two Bentleys, had a flat
off the Strand and joined the Transport and General Workers' Union. He
became a member of the award committee for the annual Muammar Gaddafi
Prize for Human Rights and visited Tripoli regularly. He believed that
the death penalty should be abolished everywhere and for ever, no matter
how evil the crime, on the grounds that it could not be justified.

One old comrade said of him: "He enjoyed being the lone warrior with the
crowd against him. He had enormous determination but he hadn't grown up
amid the subtleties of British society. I think he was naļve." Others
said, simply, that he had grown too old for recantation or repentance.

Terry Pattinson

30 October 2001
John Faithful Fortescue Platts-Mills, barrister: born Karori, New Zealand
4 October 1906; called to the Bar, Inner Temple 1933, Bencher 1970; MP
(Labour) for Finsbury 1945-48; MP (Labour Independent) for Finsbury
1948-50; QC 1964; married 1936 Janet Cree (died 1992; six sons); died
Epsom, Surrey 26 October 2001.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Letter: John Platts-Mills

A life of muck, silk and socialism

Michael Mansfield
Saturday October 27, 2001
The Guardian

Michael Mansfield writes: J PM, as he was affectionately known, was a
colleague and friend of mine for the last 30 years, and recently joined
my chambers. This will be a treasured memory, because, for many radical
spirits at the bar, he had, beyond anyone else, steadfastly represented
the attributes of courage, principle and learning, all securely bound by
an incisive wit.

At his 95th birthday earlier this month, he treated everyone, as ever, to
a beautifully crafted and poignant speech, in which it was clear that, if
he had been fit enough, he would have been on a plane to Afghanistan to
provide a peaceful channel for the resolution of the current conflict - a
task he had performed with consummate skill, unrewarded and unrecognised,
over the last four decades.

His life story was a history of the 20th century, played out on a
domestic and international stage, in which he persistently struggled to
secure legal and political justice for those individuals and communities
facing oppression and violation of their human rights. As a result, there
are few eminent and celebrated political figures who have not been
touched by his work.

Wherever he appeared, his intellectual and physical stature provided a
magnetic focal point that commanded both respect and attention in equal
measure. Only JPM could have turned up to address the demonstrators
during the Grunwick dispute of 1977, dressed immaculately in pinstripes
and bowler hat! When he spoke, there was a stillness and silence even
among the riot shields.

When taken to task at the Old Bailey by Mr Justice Melford Stevenson,
about a groundbreaking cross-examination - in which he had exposed the
fallibilities of forensic science by a masterful demonstration of how a
fingerprint could be removed from one surface and placed on another - he
conquered all by a dignified and robust composure.

He maintained a tireless commitment and energy until the end. In 1995, he
returned to politics as a common councilman of the City of London, where
he could be seen welcoming the Commonwealth heads of government as well
as participating in day-to-day policymaking.

Meanwhile, he kept his deft hand in the courts. At Southwark crown court
in 1996, he successfully tested officers of the Metropolitan Police
Obscene Publications Squad about the precise use to which inflatable
sheep could be put! Earlier this year, he was particularly moved by an
opportunity to represent three families in the Bloody Sunday inquiry in
my absence. When I returned, it was remarked that I was but a shadow of
my former self! His is a shadow that will extend over our thoughts for
years to come.

The title of his autobiography, about to be published, neatly describes
his life, and succinctly provides an epitaph looking back to his Bevin
boy days - Muck, Silk And Socialism.

Children of John Faithful Fortescue Platts MILLS and Janet CREE are:

Notes for John Faithful Fortescue Platts MILLS:

Notes for Janet CREE:

Notes for Thomas Platts MILLS:

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