Alice Mahon
Encyclopedia
Alice Mahon is a British
former Labour Party
politician and trade unionist.
She was Member of Parliament
for Halifax
from 1987 until 2005. She is a left-winger who was a member of the Socialist Campaign Group
and is a Eurosceptic
. A frequent rebel against the Labour government elected in 1997, Mahon stepped down from the House of Commons at the 2005 general election
and was succeeded by a Labour councillor, Linda Riordan
. She resigned from the Labour Party in April 2009, saying she can no longer tolerate how the party operates. Mahon, who has a history of peace activism, opposed the Iraq War and missile defence plans in her time in office. She sought to protect benefits for parents, women's rights
(particularly in regards to abortion), and gay rights. Mahon was also a supporter of reform of the House of Lords
.
in Social Policy from the University of Bradford
. She worked in the NHS as a nursing auxiliary for ten years. She taught Trade Union Studies at Bradford College from 1980 to 1987. She was a councillor on Calderdale Council.
's Rai News 24, The Hidden Massacre, asserted that the US military had used White Phosphorus
(WP) as an incendiary weapon, including against civilians in Fallujah during operation Phantom Fury
. The RAI documentary also quoted a 13 June 2005 UK MOD letter to former Labour
MP Alice Mahon stating that:
in 2006. Following the testimony of Slobodan Jarčević, who was foreign minister of the self-declared Republic of Serbian Krajina
, RSK, in modern-day Croatia
, from October 1992 until becoming foreign policy advisor to the RSK president Milan Martić in April 1994, Milošević called Mahon, who was a member of the British parliament throughout the 1990s and also sat on the NATO parliamentary committee from 1992 onwards.
Mahon told the court that she considered the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 to have been illegal and “purely political”. She suggested that the bombing was the main reason that hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians fled their homes in 1999, rather than persecution by the state security services. She also said that Albanians that she spoke with afterwards informed her that they had been told to leave by the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA). Mahon even went so far as to say that she believed the air strikes had deliberately been aimed at civilian targets. "I feel passionately that NATO should be in the dock in this place as well", she told the court. The witness also called into question the prosecution’s account of an attack by government forces on the village of Račak in January 1999, said to have left some 45 Albanians dead.
She said that her experience of William Walker
, the head of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission who was amongst the first to travel to Račak and speak out about the massacre
, which she disputes, was “appalling”. Mahon said that Walker had been involved with the Contra paramilitaries in Nicaragua
in the 1980s and recalled that conversations with soldiers, charity workers and Kosovo residents had led her to believe that the OSCE was under the influence of the American CIA: "I certainly don’t think we should have destroyed a country based on what Mr William Walker said", she told the court, adding, "I think there was something highly suspicious about what happened at Račak."
(AMD), an eye disease which destroys the central part of the vision in the eye, making the sufferer ultimately blind. According to the RNIB, more than 18,000 people in Britain go blind every year due to the condition making the disease is the leading cause of sight loss in Britain. Mahon lost most of the sight in one eye due to AMD, and expects to lose sight in the other. Calderdale Primary Care Trust has refused to fund a drug which could stabilise or improve Mahon's condition, and so she has taken to a high profile publicity campaign and threatened to take the PCT to the High Court
.
In her letter to the Halifax Constituency Labour Party she criticised the Prime Minister: "This Labour Government should hang its head in shame for inflicting [the Welfare Reform Bill] on the British public just as we face the most severe recession any of us have experienced in a lifetime." The Bill has been criticised by a number of disability campaign groups and Labour MPs for not helping the disabled or unemployed. Mahon said that she "totally disapproved of everything Tony Blair
was doing" and was dismayed at the impotency shown by the government in tackling energy providers and financial institution
s. She condemned the failure of the party to stick to its election manifesto, including pledges not to privatise the Royal Mail
, and to give the country a referendum on the EU Constitution (which later became the Lisbon Treaty).
The Damian McBride
smear revelations left her "sickened" according to the Yorkshire Post
:
Mahon continues to be active in left-wing politics, particularly through the Stop the War Coalition
and CND
. She is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association
and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society
. The No2EU campaign reports she has decided to support them in the June 2009 European Parliament election.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
former Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
politician and trade unionist.
She was Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Halifax
Halifax (UK Parliament constituency)
Halifax is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post system of election.- Boundaries :...
from 1987 until 2005. She is a left-winger who was a member of the Socialist Campaign Group
Socialist Campaign Group
The Socialist Campaign Group is a left-wing democratic socialist grouping of Labour Party Members of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. It was formed in December 1982 as an alternative Parliamentary left-wing group to the Tribune Group...
and is a Eurosceptic
EuroSceptic
EuroSceptic is the second album of British singer Jack Lucien. It was released in October 2009.Due to being an album influenced by Europop, it features songs with parts in different languages...
. A frequent rebel against the Labour government elected in 1997, Mahon stepped down from the House of Commons at the 2005 general election
United Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
and was succeeded by a Labour councillor, Linda Riordan
Linda Riordan
Linda June Riordan is an English Labour Co-operative politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Halifax since 2005.-Early life:Riordan was born in Halifax and graduated from the University of Bradford....
. She resigned from the Labour Party in April 2009, saying she can no longer tolerate how the party operates. Mahon, who has a history of peace activism, opposed the Iraq War and missile defence plans in her time in office. She sought to protect benefits for parents, women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
(particularly in regards to abortion), and gay rights. Mahon was also a supporter of reform of the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
.
Early life
She went to grammar school in Halifax. In 1979, she gained a BABachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in Social Policy from the University of Bradford
University of Bradford
The University of Bradford is a British university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The University received its Royal Charter in 1966, making it the 40th University to be created in Britain, but its origins date back to the early 1800s...
. She worked in the NHS as a nursing auxiliary for ten years. She taught Trade Union Studies at Bradford College from 1980 to 1987. She was a councillor on Calderdale Council.
Fallujah
In November 2005, a film documentary by Sigfrido Ranucci of ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
's Rai News 24, The Hidden Massacre, asserted that the US military had used White Phosphorus
White phosphorus (weapon)
White phosphorus is a material made from a common allotrope of the chemical element phosphorus that is used in smoke, tracer, illumination and incendiary munitions. Other common names include WP, and the slang term "Willie Pete," which is dated from its use in Vietnam, and is still sometimes used...
(WP) as an incendiary weapon, including against civilians in Fallujah during operation Phantom Fury
Operation Phantom Fury
The Second Battle of Fallujah was a joint U.S., Iraqi, and British offensive in November and December 2004, considered the highest point of conflict in Fallujah during the Iraq War. It was led by the U.S...
. The RAI documentary also quoted a 13 June 2005 UK MOD letter to former Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
MP Alice Mahon stating that:
"The US destroyed its remaining stock of VietnamVietnamVietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
era napalmNapalmNapalm is a thickening/gelling agent generally mixed with gasoline or a similar fuel for use in an incendiary device, primarily as an anti-personnel weapon...
in 2001 but, according to the reports for 1 Marine Expeditionary Force (1 MEF) serving in Iraq in 2003, they used a total of 30 MK 77Mark 77 bombThe Mark 77 bomb is a US 750-lb air-dropped incendiary bomb carrying of a fuel gel mix which is the direct successor to napalm.The MK-77 is the primary incendiary weapon currently in use by the United States military...
weapons in Iraq between 31 March and 2 April 2003, against military targets away from civilian areas. The MK 77 firebomb does not have the same composition as napalm, although it has similar destructive characteristics. The Pentagon has also told us that owing to the limited accuracy of the MK 77, it is not generally used in urban terrain or in areas where civilians are congregated".
Slobodan Milošević
Mahon acted as a defence witness in the trial of Slobodan MiloševićSlobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
in 2006. Following the testimony of Slobodan Jarčević, who was foreign minister of the self-declared Republic of Serbian Krajina
Republic of Serbian Krajina
The Republic of Serbian Krajina was a self-proclaimed Serb entity within Croatia. Established in 1991, it was not recognized internationally. It formally existed from 1991 to 1995, having been initiated a year earlier via smaller separatist regions. The name Krajina means "frontier"...
, RSK, in modern-day Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, from October 1992 until becoming foreign policy advisor to the RSK president Milan Martić in April 1994, Milošević called Mahon, who was a member of the British parliament throughout the 1990s and also sat on the NATO parliamentary committee from 1992 onwards.
Mahon told the court that she considered the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 to have been illegal and “purely political”. She suggested that the bombing was the main reason that hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians fled their homes in 1999, rather than persecution by the state security services. She also said that Albanians that she spoke with afterwards informed her that they had been told to leave by the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army
Kosovo Liberation Army
The Kosovo Liberation Army or KLA was a Kosovar Albanian paramilitary organization which sought the separation of Kosovo from Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1990s....
(KLA). Mahon even went so far as to say that she believed the air strikes had deliberately been aimed at civilian targets. "I feel passionately that NATO should be in the dock in this place as well", she told the court. The witness also called into question the prosecution’s account of an attack by government forces on the village of Račak in January 1999, said to have left some 45 Albanians dead.
She said that her experience of William Walker
William Walker (diplomat)
William Graham Walker is a veteran United States Foreign Service diplomat who served as the US ambassador to El Salvador and as the head of the Kosovo Verification Mission.-Political career:...
, the head of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission who was amongst the first to travel to Račak and speak out about the massacre
Racak incident
Operation Račak , also known as the Račak Massacre , "The Račak Incident", "The Račak case" and "The Račak Hoax" of 15 January 1999 was the killing of 45 Kosovo Albanians in the village of Račak by either combat or murder in central Kosovo...
, which she disputes, was “appalling”. Mahon said that Walker had been involved with the Contra paramilitaries in Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
in the 1980s and recalled that conversations with soldiers, charity workers and Kosovo residents had led her to believe that the OSCE was under the influence of the American CIA: "I certainly don’t think we should have destroyed a country based on what Mr William Walker said", she told the court, adding, "I think there was something highly suspicious about what happened at Račak."
Macular degeneration
Mahon suffers from age-related macular degenerationMacular degeneration
Age-related macular degeneration is a medical condition which usually affects older adults and results in a loss of vision in the center of the visual field because of damage to the retina. It occurs in “dry” and “wet” forms. It is a major cause of blindness and visual impairment in older adults...
(AMD), an eye disease which destroys the central part of the vision in the eye, making the sufferer ultimately blind. According to the RNIB, more than 18,000 people in Britain go blind every year due to the condition making the disease is the leading cause of sight loss in Britain. Mahon lost most of the sight in one eye due to AMD, and expects to lose sight in the other. Calderdale Primary Care Trust has refused to fund a drug which could stabilise or improve Mahon's condition, and so she has taken to a high profile publicity campaign and threatened to take the PCT to the High Court
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...
.
Resignation from the Labour Party
Mahon resigned her membership of the Labour party in April 2009 saying she can no longer condone how it operates.In her letter to the Halifax Constituency Labour Party she criticised the Prime Minister: "This Labour Government should hang its head in shame for inflicting [the Welfare Reform Bill] on the British public just as we face the most severe recession any of us have experienced in a lifetime." The Bill has been criticised by a number of disability campaign groups and Labour MPs for not helping the disabled or unemployed. Mahon said that she "totally disapproved of everything Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
was doing" and was dismayed at the impotency shown by the government in tackling energy providers and financial institution
Financial institution
In financial economics, a financial institution is an institution that provides financial services for its clients or members. Probably the most important financial service provided by financial institutions is acting as financial intermediaries...
s. She condemned the failure of the party to stick to its election manifesto, including pledges not to privatise the Royal Mail
Royal Mail
Royal Mail is the government-owned postal service in the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide...
, and to give the country a referendum on the EU Constitution (which later became the Lisbon Treaty).
The Damian McBride
Damian McBride
Damian McBride is a former civil servant and former special advisor to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. McBride began his civil service career at HM Customs and Excise...
smear revelations left her "sickened" according to the Yorkshire Post
Yorkshire Post
The Yorkshire Post is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England by Yorkshire Post Newspapers, a company owned by Johnston Press...
:
"My stepdaughter Rachel said to me: ‘How could they do that to people like David CameronDavid CameronDavid William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....
and his wife SamanthaSamantha CameronSamantha Gwendoline Cameron , often known simply as "Sam Cam", is a British business executive and wife of David Cameron, the current Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom....
when they had recently lost their son Ivan? What kind of people think it would be a good idea to smear them?' I was sickened by that – that is not the Labour Party that I joined all those years ago… Quite simply I have had it with New Labour."
Mahon continues to be active in left-wing politics, particularly through the Stop the War Coalition
Stop the War Coalition
The Stop the War Coalition is a United Kingdom group set up on 21 September 2001 that campaigns against what it believes are unjust wars....
and CND
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is an anti-nuclear organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...
. She is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association
British Humanist Association
The British Humanist Association is an organisation of the United Kingdom which promotes Humanism and represents "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs." The BHA is committed to secularism, human rights, democracy, egalitarianism and mutual respect...
and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society
National Secular Society
The National Secular Society is a British campaigning organisation that promotes secularism and the separation of church and state. It holds that no-one should gain advantage or disadvantage because of their religion or lack of religion. It was founded by Charles Bradlaugh in 1866...
. The No2EU campaign reports she has decided to support them in the June 2009 European Parliament election.