Dave Anderson has tabled a Commons motion congratulating Harry Barnes on being awarded honorary membership of the Iraqi trade union movement. The motion has so far been backed by the new North East Derbyshire MP Natascha Engel as well as Labour MPs Mike Gapes, Stephen Pound and Rob Marris as well as Conservative MP Peter Bottomley and LibDem MP Bob Russell.
The motions reads as follows: 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.