[2] He was also the leader of a protest movement to topple Oxford's Cutteslowe Wall which segregated poor working class communities from wealthier ones.

While living in Oxford he led tenant strikes in Cowley, and raised money for refugee children from the Spanish Civil War.

His health recovered in 1928 so he got a job working as a professional driver and a mechanic, later on in 1930 he joined the Hammersmith branch of the Communist Party of Great Britain[4] and became involved in the National Unemployed Workers' Movement.

Employees on the night shift in the press shop were paid short on their wages,[4] they stopped work and elected a deputation, consisting of four women and twelve men, to see management the next morning.

[10] Communists advised the strike committee to include demands for higher pay, better conditions and trades union recognition.

[13] He came to the city on Tuesday night along with two full-time organisers from the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), and shortly after his arrival Lazarus was made chair of the strike committee.

[14] On Thursday 19th, the Oxford & District Trades Council held a special meeting at which they voted to back the strike to "make Pressed Steel 100% union".

General Secretary of the TGWU Ernest Bevin intervened behind the scenes, appealing to the factory management to accept the strikers' demands.

By Saturday 28th the factory management had capitulated, and on Monday 30th the strikers returned to work with a guaranteed basic hourly rate, no victimization and full union recognition.

[20] Oxford's population grew rapidly in the 1920s and 1930s as people were brought in to work at the Morris Motors and Pressed Steel factories.

[21] Organisation in the factories increased the profile of the Communist Party and led to its involvement in non-industrial disputes, such as struggles over housing conditions.

Many of the new workers at Pressed Steel moved onto the recently built Florence Park estate in Cowley, there was such a large in-migration from South Wales that the area was dubbed 'little Rhondda'.

[23] The houses were built rapidly on low-lying marshland which was vulnerable to flooding; tenants complained of poor construction quality and unsanitary living conditions, leading them to commission an architectural report which upheld their grievances.

Later on in October 1938 he was involved in a parliamentary by-election, which was significant as one of the few British elections contested by an anti-fascist Popular Front shortly before the Second World War.