Michael Lavalette (born 1962) is a British academic specialising in social work. He is also a politician, elected to council seats in Preston City and Lancashire County Councils for various left-wing formations.
Until retirement he was the Everton Professor of Social and Community Engagement[1] at Liverpool Hope University, formerly having worked at both Liverpool and Central Lancashire universities. He is now Emeritus Professor at Liverpool Hope University and a visiting professor at the University of Bethlehem and the University of West Attica, Athens.
Academic career and social work activism
Along with Chris Jones, Iain Feguson, and Laura Penketh, he was an author of the Social Work manifesto for a new engaged practice[2][3] and organiser of the Liverpool and Glasgow conferences of the Social Work Action Network (SWAN), which stands in the radical social work tradition and seeks to oppose managerialism and privatisation within the social work profession, and to promote social work practice based on principles of social justice.[4] At the end of 2008 the Social Work Action Network ran a campaign defending social workers in the aftermath of the Baby P tragedy.[5][non-primary source needed] 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 SWANI (Social Work Action Network International) that brought activist groups together from across the globe.
In terms of academic output he is the author, joint author or editor of 30 books and pamphlets [7]
In March 2021 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]
Alongside fellow left-wing academic Iain Ferguson, he was the founding editor of the academic social work journal Critical and Radical Social Work (CRSW), published by Bristol University Press. He retired from the editorship in November 2025 after 14 years in the role. His last issue for the journal was a Special Issue on the crisis in Gaza, “Social Work in a time of Genocide” [9]
Political activism
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]
In Preston he was the co-ordinator of the local Stop the War Coalition. He organised a solidarity day in Preston for victims of the Asian Tsunami and has led campaigns against hospital privatisation, Islamophobia, the wars in the Middle East and support for local trade unionists on strike.[citation needed] A common theme in his political work has been solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle. He was involved in a campaign to twin Glasgow University with Beir Zeit University in 1982. In 2003, as a councillor, he led a campaign to twin Preston with Nablus. In 2004 he led a delegation of 34 people from Preston to the West Bank, where the group were the last ever international group to meet President Arafat [10]
He was first elected as a Socialist Alliance candidate 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.[11] In 2007, he led a campaign against academy schools in Preston.[12][13] 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.[14]
In March 2018 he left the SWP and joined the revolutionary socialist organisation Counterfire.[18]
In 2024, he was active in opposition to Israel's actions in the 2023 Israel-Hamas war.[19] In the General Election in July 2024 he stood as part of the pro-Palestine ‘Independent Network’. 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."[20] He came second to Labour, securing just over 21 per cent of the vote.
In May 2025, he was elected to Lancashire County Council. He was one of three ‘Preston Independents’ elected on an anti-austerity, ‘welfare not warfare’ ticket. [21] The three joined a further four ‘pro-Gaza’ Independents and four Greens to form a grouping, ‘Progressive Lancashire’ that became the official opposition group on the council. [22]
In July 2025 Lavalette was questioned under caution, by police over potential Public Order charges for his outspoken support for Palestine and the people of Gaza.[23]
Electoral history
2003 Local Election
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.[24] 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.[18][27]
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."[28] Writing in June 2024, Lavalette said he had significant support in the Muslim community, but also among white working class people.[29]
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
A Palestine Journey; Respect For Palestine (pamphlet)
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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