Union and Political Career
Skinner was a member of the Derbyshire County Council from 1964 to 1970, and a Clay Cross councillor from 1960 to 1970. He was leader of the Derbyshire area of the National Union of Mineworkers between 1966 and 1970. He attended Ruskin College in his 30s, after attending a preparatory course run by the NUM at the University of Sheffield.
Skinner was elected MP for the Labour safe-seat of Bolsover in the 1970 general election. He has held the seat ever since. On taking his seat, he undertook publicly to stand down from Parliament at the age of 65 (therefore in 1997), just as he would have retired as a miner. He said this was so he would not be 'taking another man's job'. Nevertheless he has since stood and been re-elected in four General Elections. He was a strong supporter of the National Union of Mineworkers and its then leader Arthur Scargill in the 1984-85 miners' strike. Skinner remains loyal to the policies on which he originally was elected into office, reflected by his membership of the Socialist Campaign Group.
Skinner takes a socialist stance regarding social issues. He voted in favour of equalisation of the age of consent, civil partnerships, adoption rights for same-sex couples, and to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Furthermore, throughout his career he has maintained a strongly pro-choice stance on abortion. On several occasions he has enabled the defeat of moves to reduce the number of weeks at which termination of a pregnancy can be legally performed in Britain by "talking out the measure" (filibustering), as on 20 January 1989, when he held up proceedings by trying to move a writ for a by-election in the constituency of Richmond.
In 2003, he was one of a large number of Labour MPs who voted against the Iraq War; he later rebelled against the party line when he voted against government policy to allow terror suspects to be detained without trial for 90 days. In March 2007, Skinner and 88 other Labour MPs voted against government policy to renew the Trident Nuclear Missile System.
He is known for his republican sentiments.
He supported David Miliband in the 2010 Labour leadership election, which was later won by David's brother, Ed Miliband.
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