John McDonnell (politician)

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John McDonnell MP

Member of Parliament for Hayes and Harlington
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 May 1997
Preceded by	Terence Dicks
Majority	10,847 (33.5%)

Born	8 September 1951 (1951-09-08) (age 56) Liverpool, England
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Alma mater	Brunel University
Website	www.john-mcdonnell.net

John Martin McDonnell (born 8 September 1951 in Liverpool, England) is a British politician and Labour Member of Parliament for Hayes and Harlington. He is Chair of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, the Labour Representation Committee, and Public Services Not Private Profit. McDonnell attempted to run against Gordon Brown for the post of Labour Party leader following Tony Blair's resignation.^[1]

1 Early and personal life
2 Greater London Council
3 Post GLC
4 Parliament
5 2007 party leadership campaign
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Early and personal life

McDonnell was born the son of a docker and shopworker, both Irish immigrants^{[citation needed]}. When he was very young, his family moved to the south of England; his father became a bus driver and was a branch secretary with the Transport and General Workers' Union. McDonnell attended a grammar school in Great Yarmouth, but left at the age of 17. Afterwards, he held a series of unskilled jobs. After marrying his first wife, he studied for A-levels at night school at Burnley Technical College, and at the age of 23 he moved to Hayes in Greater London to attend Brunel University. During this period he helped his wife run a small children's home in Hayes, and was active on behalf of his local community and the National Union of Public Employees. After completing his Masters' degree at Birkbeck College he became a researcher and official with the National Union of Mineworkers, and later the Trades Union Congress. McDonnell has two daughters from his first marriage, which ended in 1985, and a son from his second marriage^[2]^[3].

[edit] Greater London Council

In 1981, McDonnell was elected to the Greater London Council (GLC) as a member for Hayes and Harlington. He became the Chair of Finance, responsible for the Greater London Council's budget, and was Ken Livingstone's deputy leader. In an interview with Ronan Bennett for The Guardian newspaper, he described his role during this time as being, "to translate policies into concrete realities on the ground." He further discussed his performance by indicating, "I was a fairly hard-nosed administrator. We set in train policies for which we were attacked from all sides but are now accepted as mainstream: large-scale investment in public services; raising the issue of Ireland and arguing for a dialogs for peace; equal opportunities; police accountability. We set up a women's committee, an ethnic minorities committee"^[3].

Livingstone removed McDonnell from the post of deputy leader in 1985, shortly after they came into conflict over the GLC's budget. Margaret Thatcher's government first cut central government funding to local government, and then introduced rate capping, preventing selected councils from raising local taxation beyond a set level as a means of reducing public spending. Encouraged by the success of the Liverpool City Council, which delayed issuing a budget in 1984 until the government agreed to restore some funding cuts, twelve Labour councils that had the cap imposed on them chose not to set a rate at all in the spring of 1985, demanding that the government lift the cap. The GLC also faced capping, and McDonnell headed a campaign amongst Labour members to adopt this strategy in response. Unlike the local councils, however, the GLC faced a legal obligation to set a rate by mid-March. McDonnell contended that accepting the cap would lead to a reduction in spending and prevent the GLC, which had already lost all of its funding from central government, from honoring the manifesto pledges Labour had elected in 1981.

In his book If Voting Changed Anything, They'd Abolish It, Livingstone outlines his belief that McDonnell presented exaggerated figures in order to support his proposal. Despite paying lip-service to the "no rate" campaign, Livingstone set a legal rate on schedule that was passed by the GLC with the support of [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative] members.

[edit] Post GLC

Following the abolition of the GLC, McDonnell was employed as head of the policy unit at Camden Council. In 1987, he became Chief Executive of the Association of London Authorities (eventually the Association of London Government), where he represented all the London Boroughs in their relations with central government and Europe.

In 1992, McDonnell fought for his home town seat of Hayes and Harlington, but lost by 53 votes. During the campaign, his Conservative opponent Terence Dicks sued for libel over critical material in McDonnell's campaign leaflets; McDonnell settled and paid Dicks £15,000 plus legal costs, which amounted to £55,000^[4]. An appeal for funds through left-wing campaigning groups paid the bill.

[edit] Parliament

In the 1997 general election, McDonnell was elected to Parliament with 62% of the vote and a 13,000-vote majority. He has been involved in several local community campaigns, including one against the expansion of Heathrow airport and its impact on local communities.

He has voted against controversial government policies such as the 2003 Iraq war, Foundation hospitals, student top-up fees, Trust schools and anti-terror laws. In May 2003, he praised the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), saying, "It's about time we started honoring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA." He later said that the, "deaths of innocent civilians in IRA attacks is a real tragedy, but it was as a result of British occupation in Ireland. Because of the bravery of the IRA and people like Bobby Sands we now have a peace process"^[5].

McDonnell is a leading member of a number of all-party groups within Parliament, including groups representing individual trade unions, such as the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and justice unions such as NAPO. He is also a leading member of groups on a wide range of issues such as Britain's Irish community, the Punjabi community, endometriosis and Kenya.

McDonnell chairs the Labour Representation Committee, a left-wing group of Labour activists, local parties, trade unions and MPs that campaigns for the adoption of a raft of socialist policies by the Labour Government. The group was founded on Saturday, 3 July 2004, and currently has more than 800 members and 90 affiliates.

McDonnell is also the chair of Public Services Not Private Profit, an anti-privatization campaign that brings together 16 trade unions and several campaigning organizations, such as the World Development Movement, Defend Council Housing and the National Pensioners Convention. An early day motion in support of the campaign attracted more than 90 MPs^[6]. The campaign held a mass rally and lobby of Parliament on 27 June 2006, attended by more than two thousand trade unionists^[7]. Ex-ministers Frank Dobson and Michael Meacher were among those who addressed the rally.

On 31 October 2006, McDonnell was one of 12 Labour MPs to back Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party's call for an inquiry into the Iraq War^[8].

According to an article in TamilNet, John McDonnell and fellow MP Jeremy Corbyn signed a petition calling on the UK to lift a ban on the LTTE, which is listed as a terrorist group by the European Union [1].

McDonnell is one of 70 MPs who have signed an early day motion calling for an extension for the period of copyright protection, against the advice of the Gowers Review and the European Commission^[9].

[edit] 2007 party leadership campaign

Main article: Labour Party (UK) leadership election, 2007

Placard supporting him at an anti-war demonstration

On 14 July 2006, McDonnell announced that he intended to stand for leadership of the Labour Party as Tony Blair announced his resignation. He called for, "a challenge to the present political consensus," and, "a real Labour government based upon the policies that our supporters expect from us"^{[citation needed]}. McDonnell said he would like to see a return to the Labour Party's more traditional areas. He intended to re-nationalize the railways, scrap student tuition fees, and remove foundation hospitals^{[citation needed]}. This would contrast the New Labour era of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. McDonnell was also notable for his anti-war platform, having voted against the decision for the United Kingdom to form part of the US-led coalition in the War in Iraq.

Initially, McDonnell and Michael Meacher were the two candidates representing the left wing of the party. McDonnell's campaign concentrated on grassroots efforts, which earned him endorsements from the Trades Union Congress^[10] ASLEF, the annual conference of the Labour Representation Committee, and various other left wing groups. In a YouGov opinion poll of more than 1,100 Labour Party members on their preferred choice in the leadership contest, McDonnell received 9% support, and was ranked second to Gordon Brown who led with 80% of the vote^[11]. Declared supporters included Tony Benn, David Drew and Ronnie Campbell. Eleven Labour MPs declared their support on McDonnell's campaign website, including Linda Riordan, Bill Etherington, Mike Wood, Frank Cook, Michael Clapham, Diane Abbott, Bob Wareing, Neil Gerrard and Ann Cryer^[12].

Labour Party rules require candidates to be nominated by 12.55% of Labour MPs (45 out of a total of 355 in 2007). McDonnell and Meacher's campaign teams reached an agreement that when the contest began, the candidate with the least pledged nominations from MPs would drop out. Meacher withdrew on 14 May 2007, endorsing McDonnell. However, Gordon Brown received 308 nominations, making it impossible for McDonnell to collect the 45 nominations required. Brown was therefore unopposed in the leadership election.