BARRY SHEERMAN, the Labour’s longest-serving MP, has announced his decision not to contest the next general election.
“It's time for change,” the veteran politician who has been representing Huddersfield in parliament for four decades, said.
He is the second-longest continuously serving MP in the House of Commons, behind Father of the House Sir Peter Bottomley.
In a tweet posted over the weekend, Sheerman, 81, said, “serving Huddersfield has been the honour of my life”.
“After 40 years as Huddersfield’s Member of Parliament, I have taken the decision that I will not be standing at the next general election. Serving Huddersfield has been the honour of my life. Thank you to my constituents for the kindness, support and warmth you have shown me.”
In a video message, he described how Huddersfield transformed from being a traditional town into an “exciting university town” during his tenure as its MP.
“When we started over years ago, it was fairly a traditional town, manufacturing, industrial (and) successful. Together we built Huddersfield into a modern, exciting university town with diverse employments and a great number of cultural attractions”.
“Time for change. It is going to be gradual. But it is going to come…. I have tried to give the town everything I could,” the former select committee chair said.
Five years after he unsuccessfully contested the 1974 parliamentary election from Taunton, he became MP for Huddersfield East in 1979. Huddersfield East constituency was abolished and replaced with Huddersfield in 1983 and he has been its representative in the Commons since.
Sheerman, who served as the shadow minister for home and disabled people's rights and shadow home secretary in the 1980s and 1990s, is a member of the Labour Friends of Israel.
"It has been such a pleasure working with you to make this town the success it has become," he said referring to Huddersfield which has a considerable Asian population.
“I will be here as the member of parliament (till the end of the current term), working with you. There is much to be done. I will be representing you and the town in parliament as vigorously as before”, he said.
