Britain’s ‘last elected communist’ has been replaced

'I was always rebellious. Always asking, ‘why?’. ‘Why should that happen?'

Mr Clarke represented the town of Ballingry for more than 40 years (Alex Rowley)

There are - officially at least - no elected communists left in the UK.

Willie Clark, widely known as the last elected communist councillor in Britain, resigned from his position on Fife council in June. Last night he was replaced in a by-election by Labour Party candidate Mary Lockhart.

Mr Clarke represented the town of Ballingry for more than 40 years, which formed part of the West Fife constituency that also returned the UK’s last Communist party MP (for the time being at least), between 1935 and 1950.

The area was once home to the country’s largest coal mining business, the Fife Coal Company, many of whose workers once lived on a housing estate known as ‘Little Moscow.’

Mr Clarke had worked in the pit from 14 years old.

In a newspaper interview last year, he said: “I was always rebellious. Always asking, ‘why?’. ‘Why should that happen? Why has that not happened? [The Communists] caught your imagination. They were radical, wanted change, they were not prepared to accept things as they were.”

Labour’s victory on Thursday was secured by 1,219 votes, with a turnout of 29 per cent. Thomas Kirby of the Communist Party of Great Britain received 86 votes, just under three times less than the Conservatives.