Education
He graduated in History at University College, London, and became a schoolteacher.
He graduated in History at University College, London, and became a schoolteacher.
Newens was a conscientious objector during National Service and worked as a coalminer in Staffordshire. In 1949 he Joined the Labour Party, and is still a member. He left this group in 1959.
He held several posts in the National Union of Teachers and was chairman of the Movement for Colonial Freedom and president of the London Company-operative Society.
Newens represented Epping 1964-1970 and Harlow 1974-1983 in Parliament. He became Member of the European Parliament for the London Central constituency in 1984, sitting until 1999.
He held several senior positions including Vice Chair of the PLP Foreign Affairs Group. Chair and Deputy Leader of the Labour Group of MEPs.
He was generally seen as a prominent left-winger, campaigning against the Vietnam War and for other international causes.
He is also a local historian of Essex and East London. His book "A History of North Weald Bassett & Its People" was published in 1985 and his study of Arthur Morrison was published at Loughton in 2008. In Quest of a Fairer Society published November 2013 by The Memoir Club.
Newens has been an active trade unionist and co-operator and has written numerous pamphlets and books, including "The Case Against Nato" (1972), "Third World: Change or Chaos" (1977), "A History of Struggle: 50th Anniversary of Liberation, formerly the Movement for Colonial Freedom" (2004) and Nicolae Ceausescu: The Manitoba, His Ideas and His Socialist Achievements (1972).
43rd United Kingdom Parliament. 44th United Kingdom Parliament. 46th United Kingdom Parliament.
47th United Kingdom Parliament.
48th United Kingdom Parliament]
He is a former Member of Parliament (Member of Parliament) and Member of the European Parliament (Member of the European Parliament). At University College London, he met Anil Moonesinghe, a Sri Lankan Trotskyist, who was later to become a Cabinet Minister in Sri Lanka, and joined the Socialist Review Group led by Tony Cliff, a former member of the Revolutionary Communist Party (Royal College of Physicians), which later became the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).