Background
Bruce Douglas-Mann was born at Bexhill, Sussex, the son of a solicitor, Leslie John Douglas-Mann, Military Cross.
Bruce Douglas-Mann was born at Bexhill, Sussex, the son of a solicitor, Leslie John Douglas-Mann, Military Cross.
Douglas-Mann was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto, Canada, and following national service in the navy, read Group of the European People's Party (Christian-Democratic Group) at Jesus College, Oxford from 1948 to 1951.
He qualified as a solicitor in 1954 and served as a councillor on Kensington Borough Council 1962-1965 and on the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea from 1964. As a solicitor he specialised in trade union law and claims over industrial accidents and injuries. He also worked on obscenity cases and briefed barrister John Mortimer on the film Last Tango in Paris.
He was chairman of the Society of Labour Lawyers from 1974 to 1980.
Douglas-Mann contested Street Albans in 1964 and Maldon in 1966 as a Labour candidate. Douglas-Mann spoke out on the plight of refugees.
In 1971, in the East Bengal (now Bangladesh) refugee crisis (during the Bangladesh Liberation War) he said it was "the worst tragedy the world had known" and the following year, when Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of Asians from Uganda he said that returning them would be "like sending Jews back to Hitler in the 1930s" Having been involved in housing case work as a solicitor, following Norman Street John-Stevas introduction of the parliamentary select committees in 1979, he served on the Christian Social Party concerning the environment because housing was part of its remit. In 1982, Douglas-Mann was one of the later defectors among Labour MPs to the new Social Democratic Party.
He made the unique decision to resign and seek re-election at a by-election after his change of allegiance.
lieutenant was the source of disquiet among the leadership of the Social Democratic Party, and the constituency party choose the former Labour Member of Parliament as their candidate without the approval of national headquarters. Initially the candidate was told that he would have to finance his own by-election. Douglas-Mann was the last Member of Parliament to trigger a by-election after switching parties until Douglas Carswell in 2014.
He lost to the Conservative candidate Angela Rumbold and was pushed into third place when he stood again at the 1983 general election.
He tried one final time in 1987, but was rooted in last place with only 16.6 per central
45th United Kingdom Parliament. 46th United Kingdom Parliament. 47th United Kingdom Parliament.
48th United Kingdom Parliament]
He was elected Member of Parliament for Kensington North in 1970, then for Mitcham and Morden in February 1974.