Parliament
At the 1997 general election, McDonnell was elected MP for Hayes and Harlington with a 13,000 majority. He made his maiden speech on 6 June 1997. 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 honouring 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".
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-privatisation campaign that brings together 16 trade unions and several campaigning organisations, 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. The campaign held a mass rally and lobby of Parliament on 27 June 2006, attended by more than two thousand trade unionists. 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.
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.
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.
During a debate on the expansion of London Heathrow Airport on 15 January 2009, McDonnell was suspended for five days by Deputy Speaker Alan Haselhurst after disrupting Commons proceedings. McDonnell picked up the ceremonial mace and placed it down on an empty bench in the Commons while shouting that the lack of a vote on the third runway was "a disgrace to the democracy of this country."
He is a supporter of homeopathy, having signed an early day motion in support of its continued funding on the National Health Service.
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