Bill Webster - lifelong socialist steeped in the labour movement

(A slighly edited version of this piece was published in the 'Irish Times' of Saturday, August 23rd

Bill Webster – born October 23^rd 1941, died August 8^th 2014

Bill Webster, who has died in his adopted home of Derry after a long illness, was a veteran socialist, and stalwart of the trade union movement in that city. Most of his life he spent campaigning against injustice and exploitation. He was a self-taught working-class intellectual, with a profound knowledge of literature, history, and socialist theories. That self-education was completed in middle-age by a degree in anthropology at the University of Ulster.

He had a spirit of solidarity and was always available to assist workers in difficulties. Backing wasn’t just moral. When a friend was sacked for union activity, Webster arrived at the house to express support – with a sack of potatoes on his shoulder for the family.

He was one of the earliest members in Ireland of the Militant Tendency, precursor of the Socialist Party. His most intense activity was during the 1970s, extremely difficult years for socialists and trade unionists in the North. Webster’s arguments that workers should unite seemed totally at odds with reality.

Webster was steeped in the working-class movement. He was born in Liverpool in October 1941, youngest of four children and the only boy, to William Webster, a seaman, and his wife Lily (née Cooper). His father was a Communist, and had been a courier for the Communist International. After school, Webster joined the Royal Navy for a decade. He then became a merchant seaman, before becoming an official with the General and Municipal Workers Union. He also joined the Militant Tendency in Britain – soon leaving a secure and relatively well-paid union job to become the industrial organiser of a small left wing group, because he believed that was the right thing to do.

Through Militant, he met Eileen Cullen from Belfast: they married in Derry in 1975. He became part of that city’s fabric. He tied into Derry’s tradition of radical labour politics, helping reorganise the Derry Labour Party in the mid-1970s.  

Above all, he was a man of immense humanity. There was nothing he liked more than sitting up till dawn having a lively argument, preferably about politics. He lived by the principles of one of his favourite poems, ‘Democracy’ by Langston Hughes’: “Democracy will not come/ Today, this year/ Nor ever/ Through compromise and fear.”

Bill Webster is survived by his wife, Eileen: his daughters Caroline and Mary Elizabeth: his son Matthew Anthony: and his sisters Evelyn, Joan and Vera.