Michael McGowan (politician)

In two op-ed pieces published in The Yorkshire Post during 2009, Michael McGowan has raised a number of controversial issues. One article called for an urgent independent inquiry led by the United Nations into the Lockerbie disaster. McGowan wrote that he was personally affected by the crash: "As President of the Development Committee of the European Parliament, I had invited Bernt Carlsson, the Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and UN Commissioner for Namibia, to call in at Brussels in December 1988. That Bernt Carlsson was on that plane should be an extra incentive for the UN to take action in view of the fact that this impressive diplomat was dealing with some of the most sensitive and violent situations being perpetrated by the brutal apartheid regime in both South Africa and Namibia, besides his work in the Middle East. The best tribute to the lives and families of the 270 victims of Lockerbie, including Bernt Carlsson, and the most positive action for the international community to take against terrorism, is to launch an independent inquiry into this gross act of mass murder. Nothing less will suffice."

McGowan has been a member of delegations to 37 African countries and was an EU election observer in Chad, Guinea, and Nigeria. He was a United Nations election observer at the Namibian independence elections in November 1989 and the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994, when he was based in Durban. The South African city has since been twinned with Leeds, which Nelson Mandela visited and where he was made an honorary citizen.

In June 1984, having secured the nomination by defeating the sitting Member of the European Parliament, Derek Enright, McGowan was elected as the Labour MEP for Leeds, serving three terms in the parliament before he stood down in 1999. During those fifteen years, he served on the Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, and External Trade committees of the European Parliament and as Vice-President of the ACP EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly which links the European Union with the countries of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States.

Michael McGowan was elected a Labour Party District Councillor at the age of 21, a West Riding County Councillor at 23, and has served for 2 periods on Leeds City Council. He was Parliamentary Labour candidate for Ripon in 1966 and for Brighouse and Spenborough in 1979.

Michael McGowan (born 19 May 1940) is a British journalist and a former Member of the European Parliament, with a special interest in international affairs, European politics, Africa, peace, development, and human rights. He is a Director of Leeds City Credit Union, and a Director of PAFRAS – Positive Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers, and until June 2009 was a National Executive Committee member of the Co-operative Party.