Latest News – Constituency Office

The constituency staff of Denis MacShane continue to be available to try to assist constituents who require help or information. Please contact 01709 837577.

John Healey MP will be working with them to provide advice surgeries and cover any casework which requires action from a Member of Parliament.

John will be covering the scheduled advice surgery on Saturday (10 November) at 09.30 in Rotherham town hall.

John said: “I’m working with Denis’s staff to make sure there is still a service and support for constituents who need help or information during the gap before a by-election, when people in the central Rotherham constituency will have the chance to elect their new MP.”

Denis MacShane Resigns

Denis MacShane has announced his resignation from the House of Commons.

In a statement he said : “In the light of the Parliamentary Commissioner’s decision supported by the Committee of Standards and Privileges to uphold the BNP complaint about expenses claimed in connection with my parliamentary work in Europe and in combating anti-semitism I have decided for the sake of my wonderful constituency of Rotherham and my beloved Labour Party to resign as an MP by applying for the Chiltern Hundreds or as guided by the House authorities. I have been overwhelmed by messages of support for my work as an MP on a range of issues but I accept that my parliamentary career is over. I appreciate the Committee’s ruling that I made no personal gain and I regret my foolishness in the manner I chose to be reimbursed for work including working as the Prime Minister’s personal envoy in Europe. I want to thank the people of Rotherham for allowing me to serve as their MP and the Labour Party for allowing me over the years to fight for the causes I believe in. I have received so many messages supporting me from Labour and Tory MPs as well as members of the public but I love the House of Commons and I hope by resigning I can serve by showing that MPs must take responsibility for their mistakes and accept the consequences of being in breach of the House rules.”

I will not be giving any interviews.

Further Statement from Denis MacShane

Below please read a statement Denis MacShane is sending to all friends in the Rotherham Labour Party and to Labour MPs.

Dear Colleague,

Most will have heard the news about me. This morning when I read the report, I put out the statement below. I do not want to say anything more, save that I have been a member of the Labour Party for more than 40 years and I have had the honour and deep, rich pleasure of serving Rotherham, the most wonderful constituency and also the most wonderful friends of my family and myself, for more than 18 years. The party and the people of Rotherham are foremost in my thoughts and I promise you that I want to make sure they are not in any way damaged by my foolish mistakes and the decision announced today.

Denis MacShane

“I am shocked and saddened that the BNP has won its 3 year campaign to destroy my political career as a Labour MP despite a full police investigation which decided not to proceed after investigations and interviews. I am glad the Committee notes that there is no question of personal gain. Clearly I deeply regret that the way I chose to be reimbursed for costs related to my work in Europe and in combating anti-semitism, including being the Prime Minister’s personal envoy, has been judged so harshly. I remain committed to work for progressive values, for Britain playing a full part in Europe, and for combating anti-semitism even though I can no longer undertake this work as a Labour MP. I am consulting family and friends as I consider my position and study the full implications of the report. I am obviously desperately sorry for any embarrassment I have caused my beloved Labour Party and its leader Ed Miliband whom I greatly admire.”

Statement from Denis MacShane

This is all I am saying and I will not be adding anything or doing interviews
Denis

“I am shocked and saddened that the BNP has won its 3 year campaign to destroy my political career as a Labour MP despite a full police investigation which decided not to proceed after investigations and interviews. I am glad the Committee notes that there is no question of personal gain. Clearly I deeply regret that the way I chose to be reimbursed for costs related to my work in Europe and in combating anti-semitism, including being the Prime Minister’s personal envoy, has been judged so harshly. I remain committed to work for progressive values, for Britain playing a full part in Europe, and for combating anti-semitism even though I can no longer undertake this work as a Labour MP. I am consulting family and friends as I consider my position and study the full implications of the report. I am obviously desperately sorry for any embarrassment I have caused my beloved Labour Party and its leader Ed Miliband whom I greatly admire.”

Why I’m Voting with Tory MPs for a cut in the EU Budget

To be pro-European is not to endorse each and every proposal of the Brussels apparat.

By Denis MacShane Published 30 October 2012

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy (L) and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso. Photograph: Getty Images.  

There are rare moments in the Commons when principle and politics come together. One of these will happen tomorrow evening (Wednesday) when eurosceptic Conservative MPs join with Labour in voting in favour of a real-terms cut in the EU budget. An alliance, at first sight against nature, is taking shape between pro-EU Labour MPs and anti-EU Conservative ones. Tory MP Douglas Carswell, who says that Britain’s membership of the EU is like “being shackled to a corpse”, will vote in the same lobby as me, a passionate, unashamed believer that European integration has been good for my country.

The first task of any parliament, anywhere in the world, is to vote money. To vote against a budget proposed by a Conservative government is not as unpatriotic action by Labour, anymore than George Osborne was inspired by anti-British beliefs when he savaged Gordon Brown’s budgets.

All Labour MPs will do on Wednesday is fall in behind Labour MEPs, who also voted against the seven-year EU budget last week in the European Parliament. The reason is simple. The budget or or Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) as it is known in eurospeak is a product of the poorest, most unimaginative EU governance seen since the Treaty of Rome in 1957. It is a budget which continues in the more-of-the-same tramlines that have led Europe, under the controlling conservative majority in the Commission and Parliament, incarnated by the two centre-right politicians, José Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy, to its present stagnant state. There is nothing in the MFF for growth, for jobs, for the green economy or any measures to restore the confidence of European citizens that the EU is a project which has social justice and a reduction of greed and growing inequalities at its heart.

It is the re-entry of politics into the European debate that is long overdue. To be pro-European is not to endorse each and every proposal of the Brussels apparat. Some months ago, I coined the term “Brexit” – to describe the growing British politics of pushing open the exit door to the EU. Endorsing a bad Brussels budget will accelerate Brexit, as a governing party that is divided against itself between soft and hard Eurosceptics will not long stand.

There are two kinds of political discussion on the EU. The first is whether we should be in the EU at all. The second is what kind of EU we want. It is unclear how many Tories now think, like Ukip, that Britain would be better off out. Against such Brexitites are those, mainly Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs, who want the UK to stay in and be a player in seeking a better, more focused Europe.

Continuing the same old budget spend on protectionist agro-industry subsidies will suit the big landowners like the Queen and the Cooperative Movement, which are the principal beneficiaries of the Common Agricultural Policy in Britain. Subsidising EU cows when millions of human are out of work makes no sense. In the 1990s, income in south Yorkshire had fallen so low that the region, where I am an MP, became eligible for EU help and £700m arrived from EU taxpayers to help.

As prime minister, Margaret Thatcher increased the UK contribution to the-then European Community budget from £654m in 1984 to £2.4bn in 1990, thus providing Jacques Delors with the money to shape the single market. We should be spending more in Poland, Bulgaria and Romania, so that those nations can grow and keep more of their citizens working at home, rather than being economic migrants elsewhere in Europe.

But the MFF does none of these things. Conservative MPs who want out of Europe will vote against the MFF on Wednesday. Labour MPs who want to stay in a Europe which changes its priorities will do likewise. Meanwhile, David Cameron and William Hague, who have spent the last fifteen years telling voters Europe was a bad thing, are now approaching a moment of truth. Are they for Brexit or are they for Europe, but a Europe that rejects austerity and social dumping,  increases common rules on justice, and speaks with one voice globally? So far, the government has tried to be half-in, but not fully supportive of the EU. Time is running out. The vote on Wednesday will lift still further the curtain on the biggest choice facing Britain in generations.

Denis MacShane is Labour MP for Rotherham and a former Europe minister


What Cameron Sows in Europe He Reaps

Huffington Post 29 October 2012
by Denis MacShane

Whether or not the new chief whip, Sir George Young, can persuade eurosceptic MPs to vote for more EU spending on Wednesday is a minor question of parliamentary power plays.

What counts is that the 15-year long campaign against Europe initiated by William Hague when he became Conservative leader in 1997 and sustained by his successors as Tory leaders and now by Hague and David Cameron in office is beginning to cause a real crisis in British international relations.

Last week Labour MEPs took the lead in voting against a right-wing Brussels political settlement for spending over the next seven years that offered no hope for jobs, the green economy, or growth and instead refused any reform of the protectionist agro-industries subsidies backed here in the UK by the National Farmers Union and rich landowners.

Cameron has broken all political links with European centre-right parties to throw in the Tory Party’s lot with ugly nationalist, rightist parties that are happy to get as much money from the EU as possible.

The vote this week will be based on an unholy alliance. Anti-EU politicians like Mark Reckless or Douglas Carswell, who charmingly described Britain’s relationship with its friends and partners in Europe as being “shackled to a corpse”, will use the vote to insist that the EU budget should be binned along with the EU itself.

That is an internal Tory party problem which we can leave to Messrs Cameron and Hague and Sir George Young to untangle. Labour MPs should support our MEP colleagues in saying that until the present right-wing anti-growth, anti-jobs ideology that controls Brussels is replaced by a more balanced politics the proposed budget settlement should be rejected. Voting no to the present anti-growth budget is a precursor to voting yes to see a different EU with a one-nation Britain again playing a full role.

Europe has helped Britain. After the disaster of the Thatcher-Major years incomes in South Yorkshire had fallen so low the region where I am an MP became eligible for EU special funding for poorer parts of Europe. The £700 million South Yorkshire received from other EU taxpayers was a lifeline. Sadly the re-emergence of a two-nation Tory Britain with unemployment increasing in the north as it stabilises in the south may again require EU help.

Margaret Thatcher increased Britain’s contribution to the then European Community from £654 million in 1984 to £2.54 billion in 1990. When challenged she said Britain should help poorer parts of Europe – Ireland, Spain and Portugal to grow.

We should be seeking to help Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania to grow so that their citizens have jobs, hope and a future at home instead of being driven by poverty to find work in west and north Europe, including Britain.

But this EU budget does nothing to help Europe in the right direction. It is the same old spending pattern. David Cameron and William Hague have wasted the first half of their government losing friends and influence in Europe. Hague last week said in Berlin that Britain was disillusioned with Europe. But he has created that disillusionment with 15 years of mendacious myths about the EU and attacking Europe at every opportunity even to the point of saying “Britain would become a foreign land” if a pro-EU Labour government was re-elected in 2001.

The europhobe monster he and Cameron have created is now coming back to devour them. We shall see on Wednesday if the Tory Eurosceptics have any integrity and principle or whether they will be whipped mice.
Labour MPs can oppose the proposed budget because it does not correspond to any of our values or policies advanced by friends in the Party of European Socialists. Pro-EU Labour MPs can vote on Wednesday for a different, reformed, more focused Europe.

Labour MEPs have also rightly called for a single seat for the European Parliament to end further wasteful expenditure. It was John Major who signed the deal allowing the stupid Strasbourg-Brussels travelling circus to continue when MEPs should meet at the perfectly good parliamentary assembly meeting building of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and convert the pharaohonic parliament buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg into social housing and non-profit office centres.

On Wednesday Labour MPs have a chance to build on the work of Labour MEPs by voting against any increase of the EU budget and send a message to the prime minister he must start working for a better EU in which Britain can feel comfortable rather than indulging what Nick Clegg calls “nutters, anti-semites and homophobes” in European politics and pandering to the new isolationists in the Tory Party and off-shored owned press at home.

And if the government is serious about cutting waste then why not end the pointless war in Afghanistan, which in addition to the unnecessary sacrifice of young British lives has cost the UK £14.3 billion so far – much more than any moneys sent via the EU to other European nations.


MacShane Calls for an End to Hate Marches and Rallies as Rotherham is Hit by £1 Million Bill

Denis MacShane MP has expressed concern that shopkeepers, market traders and other town centre businesses in Rotherham are being targeted by extreme right-wing groups in order to do economic damage to the town.

“The total cost of policing and loss of business to Rotherham by the insistence on right-wing hate groups parading through the town centre on two busy October Saturdays may be as high as £1 million,” he said.

Last week MacShane appealed to the Home Office minister, Damian Green MP, to ban an extremist march by the National Front which followed on the economic damage down to Rotherham by an English Defence League march and rally held on October 13th.

“Last Saturday as two weeks ago the police did a good job in not allowing any disturbances to get out of hand. But it was deeply provocative to hold this march on the festival of Eid al-Adha, which commemorate that wonderful story common to Muslims, Christians and Jews about Abraham being willing to sacrifice if necessary his own son which all schoolchildren should know by heart. It is one of the moments in the year when British Muslims come together and give each other presents as British Christians do at Christmas.

The Home Office banned a second EDL march in Walthamstow on Saturday but as usual with this government there is one rule for the north and one rule for the south. Ministers would not allow such a provocative march in a Jewish area and I am concerned that some of my British Muslim constituents may feel there may be a double standard at work as they are expected to stay away from their own town centre when the Muslim-hate racists get permission from the police to occupy in big or small numbers part of the centre to Rotherham.

“I believe the EDL, National Front and the rest of these extremist hate outfits should indemnify the shopkeepers and traders of Rotherham who lost business. Taxpayers will now have to fork out hundreds of thousands of pounds to pay for policing these event. I support free speech and the right to protest but I repeat my call to the police to organise and route these racist provocations in such a way that the struggling traders of Rotherham are not victims of the far right,” MacShane added.

Below is a letter Denis MacShane sent the Home Secretary Theresa May and the Local Government Minister, Eric Pickles.

Rt Hon Teresa May MP
Home Secretary

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government 25 October 2012

Dear Theresa, Dear Eric,

Economic Impact of Extremist Anti-Muslim Marches

Two weeks after the English Defence League caused great economic hardship when it staged a march and rally in the centre of Rotherham on 13th October, we now face on Saturday 27th October a new invasion of Rotherham by racist thugs linked to other extreme right-wing organisations, including the National Front.

I am concerned at the two aspects of these demonstrations.

First, there is clear economic hardship caused to local shopkeepers, traders, market stall-holders, taxi-drivers and others who see the town centre emptied as these thugs are allowed to swagger carrying their Muslim-hate posters. Surely at some stage the Government has to accept that endless economic dislocation is a price too high to allow racist extremists uncontrolled access to invade and disrupt a town centre. My constituents are asking me about compensation for their loss of income. How do I reply to them?

Second, there is a notable increase of community tension as Rotherham’s British Muslim community react with anger at direct attacks on their faith and values. We would not allow an openly Jew-hating march to go into a Jewish area and in northern Ireland, the police and Parades Commission sought to prevent marches that were routed into Catholic communities as an act of deliberate sectarian provocation. Young Asians are saying that no one is willing to protect them and they are less willing to listen to advice urging them to stay at home and ignore the Muslim-hating racists as they swagger through the town centre where they work and shop. At some stage the view may grow that the Government and Police are more willing to protect the rights of the Muslim-haters than the right of a community not to face permanent aggression.

I have every confidence the police will do their best to prevent any disturbance but once again the Rotherham community feels it has to shut up shop, lose money, hide at home and hand over their town and community to outside racists.

I think the time has come for a policy re-think and I hope your two departments undertake this.

Yours sincerely

Denis MacShane MP


Denis MacShane Calls for Ban on Hate March in Rotherham

Rotherham MP Denis MacShane has urged the Home Office to impose a ban on hate marches in Rotherham’s town centre in order to allow shopkeepers and traders to stay open tomorrow and to allow local Muslims to enjoy the feast of Eid al-Adha in peace and security. Extremist hate groups had planned to stage demonstrations in Rotherham as part of the growing wave of Muslim-hate politics.

MacShane’s statement is below

“In light of the Home Office decision to impose 30 day ban on Muslim-hate marches in Walthamstow I have asked Damian Green MP, Home Office minister, to afford Rotherham the same right to be protected from the proposed attack on British Muslims being organised by the National Front, Combat 18 and other extremist racist organisation in the shopping centre of Rotherham tomorrow 27 October.

“Rotherham has already suffered the occupation of its town centre with major economic damage to town traders and shops two weeks ago on 13 October. There has been a notable rise in community tension following the efforts of the Muslim-hate thugs seeking to attack a town centre mosque.

“I am concerned that if another invasion of Rotherham by hate extremists, many with a record and reputation for criminal violence, is permitted the economic and community cohesion consequences will be even greater.

“With the EDL banned in Walthamstow they will turn their attention to Rotherham. I have confidence in the police to handle disorder but on the feast of Eid al-Adha to permit a gathering of Muslim-hate extremists is no more acceptable than to allow anti-Jewish fanatics to stage a march outside a synagogue on a Jewish festival.

“Therefore today as a matter of urgency appealed to Damian Green MP to apply the same 30 day ban order to any further hate marches, rallies or gatherings in Rotherham.”


Denis MacShane Shocked by Job Losses at Rotherham Hospital

Rotherham MP Denis MacShane said “I am shocked at the depth and viciousness of government cuts which could mean up to 750 jobs being lost at Rotherham hospital.

“Next year Nick Clegg and David Cameron are giving £40,000 to each of their millionaire friends while Rotherham patients face reduced hospital services to pay for a reduction in the tax the super rich pay. This is a further example of the two-nation Britain Cameron and Clegg are bringing into being. I urge the hospital management to enter into full transparent negotiations with hospital staff to minimise any compulsory redundancies but this is proof of how the Coalition government are targeting the weak and vulnerable while simultaneously protecting the rich,” said Denis MacShane.


Look Right to Make a New Case for the Left

The below article by Denis MacShane MP appeared in the Tribune on November 2, 2012.

Denis MacShane finds fresh inspiration for progressive ideas in some unlikely corners

The Labour and left-wing circuit of speakers is fairly limited. The ever-young Polly Toynbee and Will Hutton are still around, with a little help from the more youthful Owen Jones and Penny Lane. Our professors know how to write a mean monograph but none knows how to make a case that draws audiences and attention to progressive causes. The modern left has plenty of values it wants to promote but no valued speakers and writers who know how to make a radical case with verve and impact.

Might the left look right to grandees and guardians of classic Toryism to find effective critics of this government of, by and for the rich that David Cameron and Nick Clegg incarnate? More and more books are written by the right – but to make the left case. Two new books join Ferdinand Mount’s The New Few as a demolition of the greedonomics promoted by our ruling elites. Mount is a scion of Margaret Thatcher-era Toryism now disgusted at the ever-widening inequalities of the modern era. He would have made a bigger and more dramatic speaker at the Labour Party conference in Manchester than the worthy American Professor Michael Sandel who has put into English Lionel Jospin’s 15-year-old aphorism, “Yes to the market economy: No to the market society.”

Alex Brummer, author of Britain for Sale: British Companies in Foreign Hands, the Hidden Threat to the Economy (Random House, £12.99), writes for the Daily Mail, the odiously divisive, offshore-owned, right-wing daily newspaper. The Mail specialises in destroying families and individuals with sensationalist and intrusive stories. It is clear that Lord Justice Leveson puts the Mail(s) in the same category as The Sun and News of the World.

The Mail group is owned by a man who notoriously pays no taxes in Britain. Yet Brummer now breaks faith with the canons of contemporary capitalism by saying that the relentless sale of British capitalism’s assets to overseas owners is very dangerous for our economy. He lists the firms and the sectors – Boots, Body Shop, Harrods, Harvey Nicks, Fortnum & Mason, ICI, electricity, water, airports and seaports, steel, cars, chocolate – that have passed into foreign ownership.

Brummer also breaks faith with the relentless Europhobia of his paper and says a German-style public interest criterion should be applied to foreign takeovers. Surely we should begin with our national media and insist that the newspapers that shape our national life are owned by people who live – and pay taxes – in Britain?

Robert Skidelsky, author with his son Edward of How Much is Enough: The Love of Money and the Case for the Good Life (Allen Lane, £20), is our greatest living Keynesian. He drifted rightwards in the 1980s at the sheer horror of Labour’s descent into mindless petty nationalism, support for sectional syndicalism, and the policies that produced the suicide note manifesto of 1983. Now he is closer to Ed Miliband’s modernised “One Nation” Labour Party than the Keynesphobes in the coalition. Their key message is: “Our way of life feeds insatiability and insatiability feeds our way of life” and is part of the modish anti-growth chatter which demands we save the planet by turning off central heating, wearing two sweaters, and exchanging the car for a bike, and the plane for a train. So much easier to indulge in if poverty is something you write about, rather than live.

They advocate more taxes on consumption and less on income. Good news for Primark and McDonalds but bad news for Jimmy Choo and Gordon Ramsay. Their heroine is Sarah Palin whose state government in Alaska enacted a basic income which saw the biggest levelling out of income inequalities in the history of the United States. Ah, equality. The old bugbear of progressive politics.

It cannot be delivered by the state via benefits. It cannot be delivered by trade unions unless they merge their forces and accept centralised wage bargaining to achieve effective “pre-distribution” as in Sweden. So who or what produces more equality? Any Tribune reader can propose some measures to take us there as do Skidelsky père et fils. But how  to get the voters to elect a government and support effective social justice policies is the question. It is the biggest and best question in politics today – and worth thinking about and organising hard to find an answer.

As we organise our conferences, seminars and round tables on what is to be done we could, perhaps, learn as much if not more from writers on the right such as Ferdinand Mount, Alex  Rummer, and Lord Skidelsky, as the more predictable members of The Guardian and New Statesman stables.

Denis MacShane is Labour MP for Rotherham