“I was by far the most popular candidate at the start of the election campaign, yet lost heavily on polling day.”

So said Peter Tatchell, in an article written for Capital Gay, ten years after the infamous Bermondsey by-election in South East London.

Tatchell had, indeed, begun the campaign as favourite to succeed sitting Labour MP Bob Mellish upon his retirement in 1983.  But in the run up to the by-election he was subjected to what The Guardian newspaper called a “high and insistent level of vilification”.  In consequence. the Labour vote dropped from 63.6% at the previous election to 26.1% in 1983.

‘High and insistent’ barely does justice to the orchestrated levels of intimidation, fabrication and homophobia that characterised the campaign. Tatchell came under attack from all sides – largely on the basis that he was, as The Sun called him, “Red Pete, the gay rights campaigner”.

Despite Tatchell’s democratic selection by Bermondsey Labour Party to succeed retiring MP Bob Mellish, national Labour leader Michael Foot felt compelled to announce that “Peter Tatchell would never be accepted as a [Labour] parliamentary candidate.” Foot’s statement was formally ratified by the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee the next week.

The reason for this decision was media claims that Tatchell was a member of a far-left Trotskyite organisation that was plotting to infiltrate the Labour Party. He wasn’t, nor was there ever any evidence to support the claim. Nonetheless, the Labour leadership continued to follow their habit of pandering to media hysteria rather than challenging it.

Sadly for Michael Foot, the Bermondsey party held a second vote on their next Labour candidate – and Tatchell was selected again! Not only did this displease the tabloids (and, therefore, the national Labour Party) but it also put the nose of sitting MP Bob Mellish firmly out of joint. His preferred candidate – Southwark Council leader John O’Grady – had been snubbed.

With Foot reluctantly having to endorse the Bermondsey Party’s choice, O’Grady decided to stand as ‘The Real Bermondsey Labour’ candidate. His campaign, by all accounts, seems to have been based largely on homophobia and thuggery.

On one occasion he toured the constituency sitting alongside Bob Mellish on a horse-drawn cart (to emphasise his working class credentials). As they went around the streets he sang, to the tune of My Old Man’s a Dustman:

Tatchell is a poppet, as pretty as can be

But he must be slow if he don’t know that he won’t be your MP

Tatchell is an Aussie, he lives in a council flat

He wears his trousers back to front because he doesn’t know this from that

It has also been alleged that O’Grady’s supporters were responsible for a leaflet that was distributed during the final week of the campaign. It included a photograph of Tatchell – re-touched to make it look like he was wearing lipstick and eyeliner – and another of the Queen, with the message “Which queen will you vote for?”

But it didn’t stop there. More disturbingly, the leaflet also called Tatchell a traitor, gave his phone number and invited people to ‘let him know what you think of him’! Unsurprisingly, this type of behaviour, coupled with sustained media vilification produced a flood of aggression towards Tatchell. In his 1993 article for Capital Gay he described the impact:

“I was deluged with thousands of abusive telephone calls and hate letters, more than 30 death threats, and over a hundred violent assaults. My flat had to be boarded up against threatened gun and arson attacks… I lived in permanent fear of my life. Indeed, police officers later told me that I was lucky not to have been seriously injured or even killed.”

But it wasn’t just Labour supporters who were putting the boot in. It’s also alleged that the local Lib Dems also exploited the homophobia for their advantage. Their choice of the campaign slogan “It’s a straight choice” is one example quoted by critics. It’s further alleged that a slogan in the closing stages of the campaign was “Vote for Simon Hughes: A Real Man”. And there are repeated allegations that male Lib Dem canvassers wore lapel stickers declaring, “I’ve been kissed by Peter Tatchell.”

The passage of time makes those allegations difficult to prove. However it is true that Lib Dem Simon Hughes – who went on to win the election by a landslide – made no attempt to challenge the homophobia, despite acknowledging on election night that he had ‘benefited’ from “the allegations” made against Tatchell.

Indeed, he didn’t apologise for it until 23 years later – when he came out as bisexual.

Tatchell, for his part, responded to Hughes’ rather lame and belated apology by declaring – rather magnanimously – that it’s time to ‘forgive and forget’. He has also, unsurprisingly, left the Labour Party and joined the Greens instead.

Sadly, he chose not to stand as a Parliamentary candidate because of health problems caused by violent assaults against him. That’s a great loss to us – and it should be a cause of great shame to both Labour and the Lib Dems.