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Alice Mahon (; 28 September 1937 – 25 December 2022) was a British trade unionist and Labour politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Halifax from 1987 until 2005.
Mahon was a left-winger who was a member of the Socialist Campaign Group and was a Eurosceptic, and a frequent rebel against Labour's Blair government. She left the House of Commons in 2005 and resigned from the Labour Party in 2009, expressing objections to the party's political positions and internal operations. However, she rejoined the party in 2015 in support of Jeremy Corbyn's election as leader.
Mahon opposed the missile defence plans during her period in the House of Commons and sought to protect benefits for parents, women's rights (particularly regarding abortion), and gay rights. Mahon was also a supporter of reform of the House of Lords. She was opposed to the Iraq War, speaking in 2004 of the "cruel barbarism that has been inflicted upon Iraq". She told the 2003 Labour Party Conference, "we were lied to about WMD and there is no delicate way of putting it".
In a July 2003 Commons debate, she queried the support of John Reid, then the Secretary of State for Health for Foundation Hospitals: "How can the Secretary of State stand there as a Scottish MP who is not going to have one of these divisive hospitals, and yet is voting to inflict them on the people of Halifax?" In a version of Tam Dalyell's West Lothian question, the government in the subsequent parliamentary division would have lost the vote without the support of Scottish and Welsh Labour MPs. Labour's majority of 164 was reduced to 17 because of votes against the motion and abstentions. "As English MPs, we have to settle this question of Scots and Welsh MPs voting for things they're not going to have", Mahon said at the time.
The US destroyed its remaining stock of Vietnam era napalm 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 77 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.
She spoke at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on 1 March 2006 and stated under examination: "Yes, I think there is something highly suspicious about what happened at Racak." Judge Robinson responded, "But to say that Mr. Walker arranged it, that's a very serious --" which Mahon interjected to say, "Well, would you like me to say that I think Mr. Walker just happened to be there, and people disagreed with him profoundly about that being a massacre."
In her letter to the Halifax Constituency Labour Party, she wrote: "This Labour Government should hang its head in shame for inflicting the on the British public just as we face the most severe recession any of us have experienced in a lifetime." The Bill was criticised by a number of disability campaign groups and Labour MPs for not helping the disabled or unemployed. Mahon said she was dismayed at the impotence shown by the government in tackling energy providers and financial institutions. She also 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 attempted by Brown's by then former official Damian McBride and lobbyist Derek Draper, which became known around this time, were also a factor in her decision to leave the Labour Party. 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 Cameron 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 remained active in left-wing politics, including the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the Stop the War Coalition, of which she was a patron. She was a Distinguished Supporter of Humanists UK, and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. The No2EU campaign said she had decided to support them in the June 2009 European Parliament election.
Mahon was interviewed in 2012 as part of The History of Parliament's oral history project.
She re-joined Labour in 2015 following the election of Jeremy Corbyn as party leader.
Mahon died at a care home in Halifax on 25 December 2022, at the age of 85. A remembrance service was held at Halifax Minster on 6 March 2023, and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was in attendance.
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Categories: 1937 Births, 2022 Deaths, 20th-century English Women Politicians, 21st-century English Women Politicians, Alumni Of The University Of Bradford, British Humanists, British Trade Unionists, English Anti–iraq War Activists, English Nurses, British Socialist Feminists, European Democratic Socialists, Labour Party Mps For English Constituencies, Uk Mps 1987–1992, Uk Mps 1992–1997, Uk Mps 1997–2001, Uk Mps 2001–2005
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