The labour movement learned with sadness of the death of Alice Mahon on Christmas Day at the age of 85. Alice was Labour MP for Halifax from 1987 until 2005 and a member of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs. Below we publish tributes from Labour CND Chair Carol Turner, Islington North MP and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and former Labour NEC member Liz Davies.

Carol Turner:

Many of us who knew Alice Mahon, personally or by repute, will readily agree there aren’t too many left in the House of Commons nowadays like the former MP for Halifax. What can be said in a few sentences, about a warm, caring, and principled comrade and friend?

Alice was a lifelong anti-nuclear and anti-war campaigner whom I worked with on dozens of issues in the 40 years I knew her. Peace figured centrally in her values, and she never hesitated to put her money where her mouth was – on the 1990-91 Gulf War, on Nato’s bombing of Yugoslav in the civil wars of the 1990s, on America’s abandonment of the Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty, on the plight of the Palestinians and their treatment by the Israeli state, on Tony Blair’s support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and his 2007 decision to replace Trident.

• Alice was a feminist, hounded and stalked by the anti-abortion lobby during general elections.
• Alice was a former nurse and NUPE [National Union of Public Employees] shop steward who held the NHS to be Britain’s most popular institution and was scandalised and ashamed when New Labour supported its partial privatisation.
• Alice was a staunch supporter of the Good Friday peace process and firm friends with one of its chief architects, former Labour MP Mo Molam.
• Alice was an anti-racist who loved that some of her grandchildren shared an African-Caribbean as well as a Yorkshire heritage.
• Alice was proud of Halifax, its industrial and working class history, and angry that successive governments failed to provide the economic support the area needed and deserved.
• Alice left the Labour Party in 2009, a few years after she stepped down from Parliament, no longer able to stomach the endless war-mongering of New Labour.
• Alice never stopped following Labour’s progress, acknowledging its strengths as well as criticising its policy weaknesses.
• Alice was delighted when Jeremy became leader and devastated by the barrage of media attacks on him.
• Alice was outraged every time the leadership closed down a debate, suspended a local party or expelled one of its members.

Alice Mahon loved being an MP, but she was so much more than that – quite simply, a special person who worked hard at living a life in line with her socialist and internationalist principles.

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Jeremy Corbyn MP:

Alice was a great socialist, never a crowd-pleaser or career politician, with an acerbic but human wit, and never afraid to take her case into hostile territory.

I have this happy memory of her in the 2017 election campaign at a huge election rally in Hebden Bridge, on the front row beaming with hope and happiness.

She was one of my best comrades in Parliament and I will miss her terribly. My thoughts go to her family and the people of Halifax she served so well.

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Liz Davies:

The causes I associate most with Alice are peace, the NHS and pro-choice. Even back in 1987, when Labour had more MPs from working class backgrounds than today, she stood out as a working class woman, who had worked in the NHS, and it was clear that experience informed her politics.

She stuck to her principles throughout her tenure. I remember her speaking passionately against NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999 and she was a dedicated campaigner against the Iraq War.

Like so many of us, she had left the Labour Party during the Blair years and found herself re-joining when Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader. I met up with her at Labour Party Conference in 2016, when Jeremy had just been re-elected as leader by Party members, despite the machinations conducted in the PLP. She was furious with her former colleagues and delighted at Jeremy’s leadership. She was a kind and generous person and supportive to younger women.

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Alice Mahon: September 28th 1937 to December 25th 2022

Image: Alice Mahon in 2011, third from left. C/o Carol Turner.