In the 2000s, along with Chris Jones, Iain Feguson, and Laura Penketh, he was an author of the Social Work manifesto for a new engaged practice[3][4] and organiser of the Liverpool and Glasgow conferences of the Social Work Action Network (SWAN), which stood in the radical social work tradition and sought to oppose managerialism and privatisation within the social work profession, and to promote social work practice based on principles of social justice.[5] At the end of 2008 the SWAN ran a campaign defending social workers in the aftermath of the Baby P tragedy.[5] Shortly after, along with Iain Ferguson, he wrote a polemical pamphlet called Social Work After Baby P that included contributions from academics, practitioners and senior trade union officers.[6][non-primary source needed] During the COVID pandemic, Lavalette was instrumental in setting up Social Work Action Network International (SWANI) to bring activist groups together from across the globe.[citation needed]
He is the author, joint author or editor of 30 books and pamphlets.[7]
In March 2021[citation needed] he was awarded Honorary membership of the Palestinian Writers Union in recognition of his writing on, and activism with, Palestinian groups in Britain and the West Bank.[8]
Lavalette originally joined his local Labour Party in North Ayrshire at the age of 16 in 1979, but by January 1981 he had left to join the SWP. In the early 1990s he moved to Preston for work and became politically active in the local labour movement.[citation needed]
He was first elected to Preston council as a Socialist Alliance candidate[11] shortly after the Iraq War began in 2003. In 2007, he was re-elected, this time standing for the Respect Party. In the Respect split in 2007 he remained loyal to the SWP and broke with George Galloway.[citation needed] In 2007, he was part of a campaign against academy schools in Preston.[12] In December 2010, Lavalette proposed a motion to Preston City Council calling for opposition to cuts, job losses and privatisations. The motion had the backing of the local trades council and of Preston Against Cuts. Five Labour councillors had voted and spoken in favour of this motion at these meetings. Socialist Worker reported that when it came to the full council meeting however, all the Labour councillors voted against this motion, and for an amendment supporting 'fairer' cuts backed by the Liberals and Tories.[13]
He held his seat until May 2011, in which he stood for "Preston Independent Socialists Against The Cuts", losing the seat to Labour.[14] He was re-elected in 2012 as an independent socialist,[15] backed by the SWP.[16]
In March 2018 he left the SWP and joined the revolutionary socialist organisation Counterfire.[citation needed]
In the 2024 United Kingdom general election, he stood in Preston as an independent on a pro-Palestine ticket,[18] supported by Counterfire,[19] securing just over 21 per cent of the vote and coming second.[20] During the campaign, he declined to denounce Hamas as a terrorist organization, stating that "when your land is occupied ... people have the right to resist", comparing Hamas' "resistance" to that of the French Resitance during World War II. Lavalette said that, while he did not support any one group himself, “the Palestinians have always been heroic in their right to resist the colonialisation of the their lands.”[21][22][23]
In January 2025, he alleged that he was "assaulted by a Zionist provocateur" but the police did not act on his complaint after reviewing filmed evidence.[24][23]
In May 2025, he was elected to Lancashire County Council, winning Preston Central East from Labour.[25][18] Declaring "Palestine remains a central issue in British politics... so on May 1 in the local county elections we’ve decided that we are going to stand to raise the voice of Palestine once more at the elections”, he was one of three Preston Independents elected,[22][23] joining four incumbent "pro-Gaza" Independents.[1] The seven joined a further four Greens to form a grouping, Progressive Lancashire, led by Azhar Ali, that became the official opposition group on the council.[26][27]
In July 2025 Lavalette was questioned under caution by police over potential Public Order Act offences for a social media post in which he said "There is only one solution Intifada, Revolution” alongside video footage from a pro-Palestine demonstration held in London. He told a social work website: “In my police interview, I also quoted a number of academic sources, which show that ‘intifada’ means a ‘shaking off’ of structures of oppression. The police said they had never seen such a long statement.” The Jewish community representative on Preston’s Faith Covenant, said he was “deeply angered” and felt “harassed and threatened” by the use of the word intifada, because of its “unambiguous historical association with periods of murderous violence against Jews”.[28][29] The police later confirmed no action was to be taken and he faced no charges.[27][30]
Lavalette stood in the Preston City Council Elections: Town Centre Ward 2003 as a Socialist Alliance Against the War candidate. George Galloway was alleged to have backed Michael Lavalette in this election, which was one of the charges that led to George Galloway being expelled from the Labour Party.[32] He came first with 546 votes, 37.81%, unseating the Labour Party, whose candidate Musa Ahmed Jiwa came second with 440 votes. The turnout was 1,444 (28%).
2004 European Election
In 2004 he was the lead candidate in the Respect list for the 2004 European Election in the North West England region. Respect came ninth, with 24,636 votes (1.2%) and none of its candidates were elected.
In March 2024, Blog Preston and Counterfire reported that Lavalette would stand as an independent candidate for Preston in the next general election as a part of the No Ceasefire, No Vote movement.[19][35]
At election hustings organised by the local press in June 2024, candidates were asked if he would denounce Hamas "as a terrorist organisation", he answered no; asked whether he would instead denounce the actions of Hamas on 7 October 2023, he again said no: "You had the right to resist in the Second World War and the French Resistance [and also] the Yugoslav resistance, the Italian resistance, the Greek resistance – and the Palestinians have the right to fight against their own dispossession... history did not start on [7 October]". He referred to attacks on Palestinians, including one in Huwara in 2023 in which he said people were "burnt out [of] their homes": "There’s a context to all this."[36] Writing for Counterfire in June 2024, Lavalette said he had significant support in the Muslim community, but also among white working class people.[37]
The Forgotten Workforce: Scottish Children at Work (1991) (Glasgow, Scottish Low Pay Unit) ISBN1 872466 01 X
Child employment in the capitalist labour market (1994) (Aldershot, Ashgate) ISBN1 85628 600 2
Solidarity on the waterfront: the Liverpool lock out of 1995/96 (with Jane Kennedy) (1996) (Liverpool, Liver Press) ISBN1 871 201 06 3
Social policy: a conceptual and theoretical introduction (edited with Alan Pratt) (1996) (London, Sage) ISBN0-803-97532-5
Anti-racism and social welfare (edited with Laura Penketh and Chris Jones) (1998) (Aldershot, Ashgate) ISBN1-84014-507-2
A thing of the past?: child labour in Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (editor) (1999) (Liverpool, Liverpool University Press) ISBN0-312-21811-7
Child labor: a world history companion (with Sandy Hobbs and Jim McKechnie) (1999) (New York, ABC-CLIO) ISBN0-87436-956-8
Class struggle and social welfare (edited with Gerry Mooney) (2000) (London, Routledge) ISBN0415201047
Social Policy: A conceptual and theoretical introduction (second edition) (Edited with Alan Pratt) (2001) (London, Sage) ISBN0-7619-6952-7
Leadership and social movements (edited with Colin Barker and Alan Johnson) (Manchester, MUP) (2001) ISBN0-7190-5902-X
Rethinking social welfare: a critical perspective (with Iain Ferguson and Gerry Mooney) (2002) (London, Sage) ISBN0-7619-6417-7
Children, welfare and the state (edited with Barry Goldson and Jim McKechnie) (2002) (London, Sage) ISBN0761972331
Globalisation, global justice and social work (edited with Iain Ferguson and Elizabeth Whitmore) (2005) (London, Sage) ISBN0415325382
Social Policy: Theories, concepts and issues (Third Edition) (Edited with Alan Pratt) (2006) (London, Sage) ISBN1-4129-0170-7
International Social Work and the Radical Tradition (edited with Iain Ferguson) (2007) (Birmingham, Venture Press) ISBN978-1-86178-076-8
Social Work After Baby P: Issues debates and Alternative Perspectives(Edited with Iain Ferguson) (2009) (Liverpool, Liverpool Hope University Press) ISBN978-1-898749-02-8
Radical Social Work Today (Editor) (2011) (Bristol, Policy Press) ISBN9781847428172
Social Work in Extremis (edited with Vassilios Ioakimidis) (2011) (Bristol, Policy Press) ISBN978-1-84742-718-2
Voices From the West Bank (with Chris Jones) (2011) (London, Bookmarks) ISBN978-1-905192-82-3
Capitalism and Sport: Politics, Protest, People and Play (editor) (2013) (London, Bookmarks) ISBN978-1909026308
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