Michael Lavalette
 Michael Lavalette    ( Academic, politician, activist) | |
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| Born | 1962 |
Pro-Palestinian politician and activist | |
Michael Lavalette is a British academic and author specialising in social work. He is also a political activist (involved in the Socialist Workers Party for several decades) and local politician, elected to council seats in Preston City and Lancashire County Councils for various left-wing formations.
Until retirement he was the Everton Professor of Social and Community Engagement at Liverpool Hope University, formerly having worked at both Liverpool and Central Lancashire universities. He is now Emeritus Professor at Liverpool Hope University and a visiting professor at the University of Bethlehem and the University of West Attica, Athens.
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Author
Michael Lavalette is the author, joint author or editor of 30 books and pamphlets.
In March 2021 he was awarded Honorary membership of the Palestinian Writers Union in recognition of his writing on, and activism with, Palestinian groups in Britain and the West Bank.
Alongside fellow left-wing academic Iain Ferguson, he was the founding editor of the academic social work journal "Critical and Radical Social Work", published by Bristol University Press. He retired from the editorship in November 2025 after 14 years in the role.
Politician
City councillor
Lavalette was first elected to Preston City Council as a Socialist Alliance candidate shortly after the Iraq War began in 2003. In 2003, as a councillor, he led a campaign to twin Preston with Nablus. In 2004 he led a delegation of 34 people from Preston to the West Bank, where the delegation were the last ever international group to meet President Yasser Arafat.
He held his seat until May 2011, when he lost the seat to Labour. He was re-elected in 2012 as an independent socialist, backed by the SWP.
In March 2018 he left the SWP and joined the revolutionary socialist organisation Counterfire.
He was active in opposition to Israel's actions in the 2023-2025 Israel-Hamas War.
Prospective MP
In the UK/General election/2024 Lavalette stood in Preston as an Independent on a pro-Palestine ticket, supported by Counterfire, securing just over 21 per cent of the vote and coming second.[1] During the campaign, he declined to denounce Hamas as a terrorist organisation, stating that "when your land is occupied, people have the right to resist", comparing Hamas' "resistance" to that of the French Resistance during World War II. Lavalette said that, while he did not support any one group himself, “the Palestinians have always been heroic in their right to resist the colonialisation of the their lands.”
County councillor
In May 2025, he was elected to Lancashire County Council, winning Preston Central East from Labour. Declaring "Palestine remains a central issue in British politics... so on May 1 in the local county elections we’ve decided that we are going to stand to raise the voice of Palestine once more at the elections”, he was one of three Preston Independents elected, joining four incumbent "pro-Gaza" Independents. The seven joined a further four Greens to form a grouping, Progressive Lancashire, led by Azhar Ali, that became the official opposition group on the County Council.
In Summer 2025, he joined Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana's Your Party, along with fellow Lancashire County Councillors Almas Razakazi and Yousuf Motala.[2]
References
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