‘Mayhew's outcasts’: Anti-Zionism and the Arab lobby in Harold Wilson's Labour Party

This article examines the emergence of a vocal and influential pro-Palestinian campaign within the Labour Party in the 1960s and 1970s. In particular, it focuses upon the work of the Labour Middle East Council established by Christopher Mayhew in 1969. The article argues that Mayhew succeeded in laying the foundations for a network of pro-Palestinian organizations in the 1980s but that the note of anti-Zionist radicalism which he introduced provided a foothold for more controversial forms of activism within the mainstream Labour movement.