Stan was the driving force behind setting up Labour Heritage in 1982; he was our longstanding and inspiring chair and is greatly missed.
John Grigg, Barbara Humphries, Linda Shampan

A Tribute from Wayne David MP,  President of Labour Heritage
I was saddened to hear that Stan Newens had passed away. I first met Stan in the European Parliament when I became an MEP in 1989. Stan had previously been a Labour MP and had been an MEP since 1985, and from the moment I met him it was obvious to me that Stan was a man of ‘principle’; someone who believed that ‘democratic socialism’ was not a short term tactic but a set of practical principles which provided an analysis of the unequal world in which we live, a method for bringing radical change to that world and a vision of what a new world order could look like. Although Stan and I would often have political disagreements, I never doubted his sincerity.

Throughout his life, Stan was an ‘internationalist’ and always believed that exploitation and discrimination had to be confronted and defeated at home and abroad. He was an unflinching opponent of colonialism and believed that racism, in all its forms, was an evil which was totally unacceptable in a civilised society.

Once a schoolteacher, Stan was always at heart an educator. And he strongly believed that ‘history’ was a vital weapon in the armoury of a socialist. Not for him the view that history was a polite, dispassionate description of the activities of the ruling class. Stan believed in history from below. He correctly held the view that history had lessons to teach us and that ‘people’s history’ was about the struggle of the extraordinary, ordinary people, throughout history, to create a better world.
In his own writing, he showed that he practised what he preached. In his pamphlets and in his splendid book on ‘North Weald Bassett and its People’  Stan displayed well the products of his craft. They showed his in-depth research, clear writing, and consistent Marxist analysis. But they were also imbued with quite a few romanticised undertones (which Stan would have, of course, steadfastly denied).

Stan lived a good life. A life that was about doing all he could to help improve the lot of his fellow men and women.
His contribution to Labour History was enormous. If we can continue his work, that will be the greatest tribute that we can pay to Arthur Stanley Newens.

A Tribute from Barry Buitekant
Stan was my history teacher at Edith Cavell Secondary Modern school in Hackney. I can't recall the date he started teaching me but I left school in 1962.  I only achieved 3 O levels - given that Stan was my teacher, unsurprisingly  history was one of them.

 I recall Stan being very good at explaining that history was not  a question of great men but of the social forces at work. He was also insistent that if we wanted to make our way in the world we had to work hard for that to happen. He would tell us (and he often did so)  that whilst studying for exams he would even spend several hours on Christmas Day doing so.

After leaving school I joined several Trotskyist groups and learnt that Stan had early on joined the Socialist Review group led by Tony Cliff. It wasn't until 1991 that I met Stan again. In the meantime  Stan had been Labour MP for Epping (those were the days) & Harlow,  and was then MEP for London Central. It was at Sam Bornstein’s funeral at the City of London cemetery that we met. I noticed Stan affably chatting away with Mildred Gordon MP, Tony Cliff and Ted Grant. At the wake I took the opportunity to introduce myself to Stan and he was pleased to hear that I was active in the Labour Party and on the Editorial Board of Revolutionary History journal and had been an active trade unionist in the Post Office and British Telecom. Stan said he recalled me from school as my English grammar was awful but that I picked up political ideas quickly. First of all I thought that Stan was being diplomatic in saying that he remembered me, but I think he really did as my English grammar was indeed awful.  We kept in intermittent contact afterwards.

 Stan was particularly pleased when in 2006 I told him that I had been elected as a Labour councillor for Haggerston ward - which included parts of Hackney Road and Bethnal Green Road, the area his family knew so well; it is literally yards  away from what was Edith Cavell school.  
So farewell Stan and thanks for putting me on the political road.