Xmas morning saw the death of Alice Mahon, Stop the War Patron and Labour MP for Halifax, 1987-2005. There aren’t too many like her in the House of Commons nowadays – an MP who remained unbendingly committed to peace, socialism, and internationalism.
Alice was a socialist, a feminist, and a staunch trade unionist. She loved Halifax where she had grown up and was proud of its working class history. She was also a committed anti-racist who never tired of pointing out that some of her grandchildren shared an African-Caribbean as well as a Yorkshire heritage. Most of all, her opposition to militarism and war-making was pitiless.
She was one of the first MPs to join the Committee to Stop War in the Gulf in 1990, set up by CND in anticipation of the invasion that came in February the following year, and worked alongside Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn, and others – including Andrew Murray and I – to bring it to an end.
Horrified when Tony Blair supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Alice took part in many activities of the newly launched Stop the War Coalition. She also set up Iraq Liaison to campaign against the war amongst all parliamentarians and get the opposition to war onto the floor of the Commons.
In one of her regular news releases at the time, Alice said of Blair: ‘The Prime Minister has failed miserably to make a case for military action… Briefings by ministers are pathetic – lightweight statements of belief with no facts whatsoever about the actual situation. I shall be calling for [a debate] when the House sits this afternoon.’
In the run up to the invasion, Alice tabled an Early Day Motion against intervention. EDM 927 was signed by 162 MPs – LibDems, Plaid Cymru and Scottish Nationalist as well as many of her Labour colleagues, and including four ex-ministers.
Less well-known perhaps, Alice was an elected and well-respected UK member of the Nato Parliamentary Assembly, even chairing one of its sub-committees for a time. A fierce and outspoken opponent of Nato, her involvement in the Parliamentary Assembly didn’t stop her from speaking out against Nato at every opportunity. Sadly, this would likely see her removed from today’s Parliamentary Labour Party.
As with Iraq, so with former Yugoslavia. Alice and I set up the Committee for Peace in the Balkans at outbreak of civil war in the 1990s. She was one of a very few MPs prepared to speak out against western intervention, recognising the unnecessary deaths and destruction that was to be its outcome. Despite media vilification, she remained adamantly opposed to the bombing campaign. and visited Yugoslavia during the 1999 bombing, one of the very few western politicians to do so, As Jeremy Corbyn said, Alice was ‘one of one of my best comrades in parliament’ and never afraid to speak out.
Alice was warm and generous, treating everyone equally regardless of rank or status. That warmth veiled some sharp insights which poked out from time to time in the form of acerbic humour – like when she’s quipped to Blair on the floor of the Commons during an Iraq discussion: ‘Who’s next, North Korea?’
Alice enjoyed her role as an MP, one whose political commitment and loyalty to friends, comrades, and community stands as an example to today’s parliamentarians and would-be parliamentarians of tomorrow. She was, however, much more than that – someone who worked hard at living a life in line with her socialist principles. She will be very missed by the great majority of us who share those values.
Carol Turner, Stop the War Coalition Officers Group