HONORARY TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP

Early day motion 2077, tabled 3 May 2006 by David Anderson (Labour). Signed by 44 members.

That this House congratulates Harry Barnes, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire from 1987 to 2005, on being granted honorary membership of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, the main new Iraqi trade union centre formed after the fall of Saddam Hussein; notes that honorary membership was conferred on Mr Barnes at a summit meeting between the Iraqi trade union movement and a delegation organised by Labour Friends of Iraq in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan in early April; and believes that the conferral of honorary membership is a fitting tribute to a man who first experienced Iraq in the mid-50s when he did his national service in that country, who consistently opposed the invasion of Iraq and then united with those who took different views to promote the interests of the free Iraqi trade union movement and wider civil society as a joint President of Labour Friends of Iraq.

Signatures by party: Labour 40, Liberal Democrat 3, Conservative 1.