Obituary: Barry Winter 1944-2025

Our friend and comrade Barry Winter, former ILP secretary and editor, has died at the age of 80. NEIL RHODES remembers a teacher, writer and thinker who embodied the organisation’s commitment to political honesty and unwavering humanity.

Barry Winter’s dedicated commitment to the ILP lasted for nearly 60 years – from 1966, when he joined as a student at Leeds University, to his death in a Leeds care home on 16 August.

During that time he held a number of important positions, including general secretary, political secretary and editor of the ILP’s paper, Labour Leader, and its successor, the ILP Magazine. He was a leading figure in the organisation’s rebirth and transformation from far left obscurity into a vital and independent voice at the heart of the Labour left.

Barry (pictured left) was born in Stoke on Trent in 1944 to parents who were market traders. His mother was Jewish from the east end of London and Barry was subjected to racism as a child, both on the bus to school and from his paternal grandfather.

He moved to Yorkshire in the 1960s to study at Leeds University and it was here that he met Eric Preston. Eric was handing out ILP leaflets during the seamen’s strike of 1966 and persuaded Barry to join him, first with the fliers and then as a comrade in the ILP.

Barry and Eric were friends and fellow thinkers from that point on, forming a formidable pair among a group of younger ILPers who began the long and tortuous process of taking the organisation back into the Labour Party, a sometimes bitter battle they eventually won in 1975.

In the late 1960s Barry became a lecturer in sociology at Margaret McMillan College of Education in Bradford, where he supported many student campaigns and ran alternative lecture programmes. Inevitably, this led to a fallout with the college management and he was duly sacked.

The college’s loss was the ILP’s gain, however, for he began working for the organisation in 1971 and remained an employee for the next 23 years. He became general secretary in 1975 and later an astute and exacting editor of many ILP publications, including Labour Leader, the magazine and numerous pamphlets on subjects from Northern Ireland, to local authorities, to the poll tax and Labour Party democracy, as well as the ILP’s seminal 1980s text, Labour in Crisis, written by Eric.

He also wrote a huge number of articles and pamphlets himself, often with a lightness of touch that combined his characteristic personal warmth and openness with a hard-nosed political nouse, always careful to display his unrivalled knowledge with a sense of genuine humility.

Among the publications he authored was Land and Freedom, on the Spanish Civil War, and The ILP: Past & Present, a vivid history of the organisation from its founding in 1893 to the present day, which has been updated and re-issued a number of times, most recently on the organisation’s 130th anniversary in 2023.

Generous & engaged

Barry was always generous, both personally with his time and in his politics. He spoke at many meetings and encouraged a large number of people, including many young people, to engage in political campaigns and join the ILP. He was active himself – in CND, in protests against the Vietnam War, in the anti-apartheid struggle, during the miners’ strike and in the fight against the poll tax, among many other campaigns.

Locally, Barry was active in the Leeds Labour Party and involved in organising meetings of a Leeds Soundings group. Alongside Eric, he developed many of the ILP’s unique political stances on Labour and the left, not least during the 1980s and ’90s when it argued for one member, one vote and internal party democracy long before many other organisations.

He later returned to lecturing, joining Leeds Metropolitan University where he taught politics to youth and community workers, developing a range of innovative courses, including on the politics of dance. He was an inspirational teacher and forged many continuing friendships with students. He also invited prominent political figures to give university talks and encouraged students to question the speakers.

His great knowledge and experience made him a forceful opponent in political arguments and debates, although he was invariably modest and open to others’ views, and often did not take full credit for all that he did or achieved.

Personally, he loved travel, beginning with a 1970s trip to southern Africa where his uncle, Colin Winter, was a bishop in Namibia. Over the years he visited many other countries, although his heart was always in Yorkshire, his adopted home. In particular, he cherished the Yorkshire Dales where he went for walks, accompanied for a time by his dog, Anna, a Lurcher.

His close friends and Leeds ILP colleagues became his family, although he made friends everywhere and valued all those relationships. Closest of all was his friendship with Eric and for years the two would discuss the issues of the day and look hard at how the ILP should make its contribution. Barry’s role was often to convince Eric of the best way to present his ideas in the ILP’s publications. Not surprisingly, he was deeply affected by Eric’s final illness and death in 2020.

Barry eventually retired from teaching but remained politically active until the last few years of his life when illness restricted his activities and curtailed his involvement.

His passing leaves a huge hole, not only in the ILP but in the lives of many friends, family and comrades. He will be very much missed by all. We are, without doubt, much better for having known Barry Winter.

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Barry’s funeral will be held at Lawnswood Crematorium, Leeds LS16 6AH at 1pm on Thursday 4 September.

The ceremony will also be available online at: watch.obitus.com.
Username: zuzu1656; password: 972208

Any donations in his memory should be made to Medical Aid for Palestinians.

We aim to publish further tributes to Barry in the coming days.