Veteren former Labour MP "sickened", quits party

[Frau Schmidt]

One of Yorkshire's best known Labour members has launched a ferocious attack on the party and Gordon Brown in a withering resignation letter in which she says she feels "betrayed''.

Alice Mahon, a Halifax MP for 18 years and a party member for more than 50 years, has resigned her membership of the party saying she can no longer stomach how it operates.

In her letter to the Halifax Constituency Labour Party she criticises the Prime Minister saying he has shown zero contrition over privatising public services and failed to tackle the excesses of the bankers.

And she heaps scorn on the Welfare Reform Bill saying: "This Labour Government should hang its head in shame for inflicting this on the British public just as we face the most severe recession any of us have experienced in a lifetime.''

Mrs Mahon, 71, a trenchant critic of Tony Blair's government, says she had hoped that under Mr Brown's stewardship "we might go back to being a really progressive and caring party'' but "in the event I could not have been more wrong''.

And she says the recent scandal over emails sent by Mr Brown's special adviser, Damian McBride, proposing a blogging site smearing top Tories left her feeling "sickened''.

She told the Yorkshire Post: "My stepdaughter Rachel said to me: 'How could they do that to people like David Cameron and his wife Samantha 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.''

In the letter she said: "This has been a difficult decision to take as I feel I was almost born into the Labour Party. However, I can no longer be a member of a party that at the leadership level has betrayed many of the values and principles that inspired me as a teenager to join.''

Other targets include the Government's alleged co-operation with the George Bush regime.

And she adds: "Our ministers shame us in front of the world when they give their support to the Israeli Government as they commit war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon.

"Brown has just announced plans to send another 900 troops to Afghanistan, billions to be spent on an unwinnable war and pensioners dare not turn on their heating because this Government will not tackle the energy fat cats.''

She also fulminates against the "despicable'' treatment of Janet Oosthuysen, a mother-of-three who won a close contest to stand as a prospective Parliamentary candidate in Calder Valley last year only to be deselected by the National Executive Committee, over a police caution after her former partner's car was damaged. She contrasted the NEC's actions with its silence over the Home Secretary's expenses row.

She said: "My final reason for leaving the party is because it is no longer democratic. The personally vindictive, dishonest, campaign played out on the pages of the tabloids by certain Labour Party members to deselect Janet Oosthuysen was despicable...

"Quite simply I have had it with New Labour.''

Last night Halifax MP Linda Riordan, a former protege of Mrs Mahon's, said: "I am very sad. She gave a lot to the Labour Party but at the end of the day the Labour Party gave a lot to Alice too and that is all I have to say. I do hope she will reconsider.''

Susan Press, the mayor of Hebden Royd Town Council, said: "I think it is a tragedy when we lose principled and passionate people like Alice Mahon from the Labour Party."


http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/39Sickened39-MP-Alice-Mahon-quits.5182941.jp

[non sociopath skin]

1. Guten morgen, Frau Schmidt!

A little problem with English spelling in both subject lines, I see.

http://freebritannia.6.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=11980&sid=ad939f7276f17a62033c3c9b4ddad332

And how are Herr Albus and Herr Larkin?

The Skin:evilgrin:

[non sociopath skin]

2. Doubr whether she'll be joining your lot, though, BD.

Or voting for them.

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

3. I agree about the privatization of public services

Good for her resigning.

[non sociopath skin]

4. I had the pleasure of meeting Alice Mahon some years ago.

I didn't agree with everything she said, but I liked her a lot. And she was straight as a die.

Frankly, I'm amazed she lasted as long as she did in the Labour Party. But where do you go ....?

The Skin

[Nihil]

5. Sad isn't it ...

... when the politicians that have integrity resign as this just leaves
the way open for the scum to spread into the gap ...

As you say, she did well to last this long with "New Labour".
:-(

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Short article by Alice Mahon:

It became clear to me during my 18 years in parliament that, with the phenomenon called New Labour, two things would change the politics of the Labour movement forever.

One, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown would adopt with great enthusiasm the free market economics pursued by Thatcher and the US neo-cons. Two, they would have to change the structures and policies of the party to achieve their goal.

A machine was put in place to crush anything remotely connected to Old Labour. Conference was changed beyond recognition, any dissent ruthlessly stamped on by the new spin masters. Delegates were sought out and pressurised into supporting New Labour policies even if they were against what the local party had decided.
...
I have stood for conference arrangements committee twice and the party machine has moved in and spent enormous amounts of money supporting the candidates who would always support the leadership's bidding. No expense was spared when it came to defeating an independent voice. Party members have effectively been banned from any decision making.
...
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/alice-mahon-why-i-could-stay-and-fight-no-longer-1671323.html