Paul Marsden - Labour Member of Parliament

Labour Member of Parliament

Marsden was elected as the first (and thus far only) Labour MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham at the 1997 general election with a swing of 11.4%; a seat which he held at the 2001 election with a further swing of 5.5%. He spoke in the Commons for the first time on 21 May 1997 and in an otherwise traditional maiden speech, joked prophetically about refusing to be intimidated by the Whips. He was nominated to serve on the Agriculture Select Committee and remained for four years quietly serving on the committee.

On 14 April 1999, Marsden introduced the Cancer Care Bill with backing from cancer charities including Macmillan Cancer Support, under the Ten Minute Rule that would create the first comprehensive directory of cancer services in the UK to aid patients in identifying the location and type of cancer care available. The Bill prompted Ruth Fermor Allan to create such a directory called 'Cancer Care 2000', which was published by Cambridge Healthcare Publishing Ltd in November 2000.

Marsden asked the last question to the Prime Minister of the 20th Century at PMQs on 15 December 1999 about the Northern Ireland peace process.

In March 2001, Marsden with cross party support put forward a Doorstep Recycling Bill, mandating the collection of recyclable materials from streets. The Bill was backed by Friends of the Earth. The Bill did not succeed that year but the Government eventually backed a similar Bill by Joan Ruddock and the Municipal Waste Recycling Bill was passed in October 2003, increasing the levels of recycling of residential waste.

After a first term loyally supporting the Government, Marsden began to question the Labour Government's foreign policy following 9/11. On 8 October 2001, he was the first MP in the Commons to publicly call for a vote on any military action in Afghanistan. Marsden took to sitting in Tony Benn's former Commons seat below the gangway on the second row from the back. Two weeks later, Marsden was instructed to attend a meeting with the Labour Chief Whip, Hilary Armstrong. As Jeremy Paxman wrote, "the Labour MP Paul Marsden took the unprecedented step of recording the dressing-down", where he said that he had been confronted with accusations that "those aren't with us are against us," "war is not a matter of conscience" and "it was people like you who appeased Hitler in 1938", infuriating Marsden to going public.

Tony Benn described in his diary that "The pressure on the anti-war MPs is growing. Apparently Paul Marsden, the Labour MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, had three-quarters-of-an-hour being bullied by the Chief Whip, Hilary Armstrong." Number 10 were forced to put out a statement that dissenting backbenchers would be allowed to speak out on the war. The Guardian in its Leader praised Marsden for having called for a vote on the war and publishing the Chief Whip's response to it and stated, "On both counts he has done British democracy a service."

Undeterred by the Whips criticism, Marsden then spoke out against the press officer Jo Moore who had said, that 9/11 was "a very good day to get out anything we want to bury"; he and Tam Dalyell were the only two Labour MPs to vote against the Government.

In November 2001, Marsden visited Pakistan and the Afghan border to highlight the plight of Afghan refugees living in camps who had fled the war. Marsden also negotiated the release of Sunday Telegraph journalist Christina Lamb and photographer Justin Sutcliffe, who had been arrested and held by the Pakistan Police and Inter-Services Intelligence secret service. Christina Lamb thanked Marsden in the acknowledgements of her biographical book, The Sewing Circles of Herat, "Paul Marsden MP for Shrewsbury, helped rescue us from the ISI, being manhandled by Baluchistan police in the process, and kindly rearranged his whole schedule to stay in Pakistan until we were safely out."

On 18 November 2001, Marsden was one of the leaders of the Stop the War demonstration against the war in Afghanistan in London. Marsden was one of the principle speakers along with Tony Benn and George Galloway in Trafalgar Square with 100,000 protesters.

Marsden complained bitterly that he had been subjected to late night physical attacks by some Labour Whips, which were vigorously denied. Five days later, he defected to the Liberal Democrats on 10 December 2001, citing his disagreements with Labour whips over his opposition to military action in Afghanistan and the resulting civilian casualties. By crossing the floor of the House of Commons, his actions contributed to a parliamentary vote being granted before the 2003 Iraq war. The Big Issue magazine's readers voted Marsden 'Hero of the Year' in 2001 for his opposition to the war in Afghanistan.