Konni Zilliacus

Konni Zilliacus (13 September 1894 – 6 July 1967) was a British politician, diplomat and writer who was the Member of Parliament for Gateshead from 1945 until 1950, and for Manchester Gorton from 1955 until his death. He was a left-wing Labour Party politician. Zilliacus spoke nine languages fluently and international issues absorbed much of his energy, both as an official of the League of Nations between the wars, and as a member of the House of Commons in the post-war period. He was widely considered to have had communist sympathies. Having come into conflict with the Labour Party leadership, he was expelled from the party in 1949. In 1950 he lost his seat in parliament, was re-admitted by Labour in 1952, and returned to the Commons in 1955. Zilliacus campaigned for less spending on weapons. He was a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and opposed the Vietnam War. His father was Konrad Viktor Zilliacus, a Finnish independence activist.