Author: I'm certain ex-Wolverhampton MP was a Soviet spy
An espionage expert has said there is 'no doubt' that the former Wolverhampton MP Bob Edwards was a 'fully-paid-up member of the KGB'.
As revealed by the Express & Star earlier this week, Mr Edwards, the former MP for Wolverhampton South East, was outed as a Soviet spy by a new book entitled the Black Door.
Veteran Labour MPs leaped to his defence, including David Winnick who said it would be 'most unlikely', and Ken Purchase who branded the claims 'utter nonsense'. Mr Purchase added Mr Edwards always 'flatly denied' secret Soviet ties when they had discussed the claims.
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But Richard Aldrich, the co-author of the book, has told the Express & Star he is in 'no doubt' that Mr Edwards was a Soviet spy. He points to secret Russian papers as well as books that Mr Edwards helped to write against the CIA as proof that his claim istrue.
He said: "Bob was well known in European circles which meant he had the ability to pick up secret information without great difficulty.
Despite finding no evidence in Mr Edwards' Labour records, Mr Aldrich explained why he was '101 per cent sure' that Mr Edwards was a Soviet spy.
It is based around his CIA writing and the infamous leak by former KGB spy Vasiliy Mitrokhin, more commonly known as the Mitrokhin Archive, in which Mr Edwards was named.
Mr Aldrich said: "I thought the Mitrokhin Archive was enough evidence to prove without any doubt that Bob Edwards was a spy. If not, you only have to look at what he was writing and doing.
"Sometimes people just get caught having coffee with the wrong person without realising. But not in this case, Bob Edwards was a fully-paid-up KGB agent."
Asked if he was standing by his claims despite rebuttals from those close to the late MP, including current Walsall MP David Winnick who raised questions over how Mr Edwards' Trotsykist views would sit with working with the Stalinist KGB, Mr Aldrich added: "There is no doubt, I am 101 per cent sure that Bob Edwards was a spy."
Claims about Mr Edwards' links to the KGB first emerged in 2009 in a book called The Defence of the Realm, an official history of M15 written by Professor Christopher Andrew.
The publication also alleged that former Walsall MP John Stonehouse was spying for the Czech secret police.
Mr Edwards was born in 1905 in Liverpool becoming the city's youngest councillor aged 22 in 1927.
He met Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin while leading an Independent Labour Party youth delegation to the Soviet Union.
He was elected to represent Bilston as an MP in the 1955 General Election. When the constituency was abolished in 1974, he won the new seat of Wolverhampton South East.
