Herschel Lewis Austin (22 March 1911 – 8 April 1974[1]) was a British Labour Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Stretford from 1945 to 1950.

On one occasion Lord Beaverbrook, the Canadian newspaper entrepreneur who was Minister of Aircraft Production in Churchill's war Ministry, visited the factory and was shown round by "Mr. Lew".

In 1944, after having previously been refused permission to leave his civilian employment, Lew Austin joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve where he served first on destroyers in the Mediterranean and then in the Fleet Air Arm, ending up in a staff position at a Naval headquarters at Lee on Solent rising to the rank of Sub Lieutenant (Sub.-Lt).

He was also prominent in the Fabian Society along with his older brother, the late Frank Austin O.B.E., and was effectively headhunted for a direction shift into politics, after being told by a colleague, "You are wasted here, you're needed in the Labour Party".

During his time in Parliament Lewis Austin was one of a dozen or so Jewish Members during the period when the British Mandate of Palestine ended and the state of Israel was born.

Austin gained something of a reputation as a leftwing firebrand while in Parliament, and some years later was detained on Ellis Island by US immigration for a number of days on suspicion of being a communist, at the height of the McCarthyist movement in the USA.