Glyn Ford | |
|---|---|
 Ford in 1994 | |
| Member of the European Parliament | |
| In office 14 June 1984 – 14 July 2009 | |
| Preceded by | Constituency established(1984,1999) |
| Succeeded by | Constituency abolished(1999, 2009) |
| Constituency |
|
| Leader of theEuropean Parliamentary Labour Party | |
| In office 1989–1993 | |
| Member ofTameside Borough Council | |
| In office ?–? | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1950-01-28)28 January 1950 (age 75) Gloucester, England, United Kingdom |
| Political party | |
| Alma mater | |
| Profession | Academic |
| Website | glynford.org(Archived 4 May 2014) |
Glyn Ford (born 28 January 1950) is a British academic andLabour Party politician. He was aMember of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1984 to 2009, initially forGreater Manchester East until 1999, thenSouth West England from 1999 to 2009.[1]
Ford was born inGloucester.[1] He went toMarling School,Stroud. After a year as an apprentice at theBritish Aircraft Corporation he returned to education gaining a degree in Geology from theUniversity of Reading in 1972, then a master's degree in marine Earth science fromUniversity College London in 1974.[2][3]
For most of his academic career Ford worked at theUniversity of Manchester, as aresearch fellow (1976–1979), a lecturer (1979–1980), and finally as a senior research fellow in the Department of Science and Technology Policy (1980–1984).[2][3]
He also taught for theOpen University (1976–1978) andUMIST (1977–1978). He was a research fellow at theUniversity of Sussex (1978–1979). In 1983, he spent six months as a visiting professor atTokyo University.[2][3]
After becoming a member of the European Parliament in 1984, the University of Manchester made him an honorary visiting research fellow.[2]
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While working at the university, he was a local councillor in the Greater Manchester borough ofTameside, where he was the Chair of the Environmental Health and Education Committees.[citation needed]
On14 June 1984 Ford was elected as a member of the European Parliament for the new constituency ofGreater Manchester East. He held this seat for three terms, until the constituency was abolished in 1999, being re-elected on15 June 1989 and9 June 1994.
In 1987 he stood as the Labour candidate for theHazel Grove constituency in Greater Manchester in the1987 general election, a seat where Labour had no likelihood of winning.[2]
From 1989 to 1993 Ford was Leader of theEuropean Parliamentary Labour Party and Deputy Chair of theEuropean Parliament Socialist Group.[2] Consequently he was also a member of Labour'sNational Executive Committee.[2]
On10 June 1999 Ford was elected as a member of the European Parliament for the constituency ofSouth West England for both theLabour Party and theGibraltar Socialist Labour Party.Gibraltar was part of the South West England European Parliament constituency. Ford campaigned for Gibraltar to have its own seat in the European Parliament, rather than only having representation through the South West England constituency.[4]
Ford held this seat for two terms, being re-elected on10 June 2004. He lost his seat in theelections on 4 June 2009. The Labour Party gained 118,716 votes (7.61%) in the South West region in 2009, which was insufficient to win a seat in the multi-member constituency which had had its representation reduced from seven to six at that election.[5]
Ford's three main areas of interest are Research and Development, Racism and East Asia.[6] Ford was for fifteen years a member of the European Parliament's Research Committee, the Guest Editor of the Science and Public Policy Special Issue on Science and Technology in Europe and the author, with Chris Niblett and Lindsay Walker, ofThe Future for Ocean Technology (Frances Pinter, 1987).
Ford was Chair of the European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry into The Growth of Racism and Fascism in Europe (1984–86) andrapporteur for a second European Parliament Committee of Inquiry into Racism and Xenophobia. He served as the European Parliament's representative on the Council of Ministers Consultative Commission on Racism and Xenophobia (1994–99). He was National Treasurer of theAnti-Nazi League[6] and author of Fascist Europe (Pluto, 1992).
In 1996 he published withGlenys Kinnock andArlene McCarthyChanging States: A Labour Agenda for Europe (Mandarin, 1996).
He served throughout his time in the European Parliament as a member of the Japan Delegation and as a member of the Korean Peninsula Delegation from its formation in 2004. In these roles he visitedNorth Korea almost 50 times.[7] He was the EU's Chief Election Observerin Indonesia in 2004[8] andin Aceh 2006–7.[9][10] In 2008, he published,North Korea on the Brink: Struggle for Survival (Pluto) which has been subsequently been published in Japanese and Korean. He wrote forThe Japan Times.[11]
After leaving the European Parliament, Ford founded the Public Affairs and International Relations consultancy Polint.[12]
Ford stood in the2014 European Parliament election, but his second position on the LabourSouth West England list did not yield a seat.Ford is a member of the Labour PartyNational Policy Forum, and was re-elected in 2015.[13][14]
Since 2014 Ford has been Director of the Brussels-based NGO Track2Asia.[15]In 2014, he was a regular contributor toTribune.[16] As of 2020, Ford writes on international matters forChartist,NK News and38 North.[17][18][19]
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Leader of theEuropean Parliamentary Labour Party 1989–1993 | Succeeded by |
