October 22, 2015 – It was with considerable sadness that the 9/11 Consensus Panel learned of the brief illness and passing of one of its most respected Honorary Members, British Labour Member of Parliament, the Rt. Hon. Michael Meacher, who joined the Panel in September 2011.
Mr. Meacher died on October 21 at age 75, after having served as MP for Oldham West and Royton for 45 years. He was one of 36 Labour MP’s to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election this year.
The BBC obituary reported an outpouring of tributes for this decent, hard-working man of unusual integrity.
Mr. Meacher was openly critical of the US failure to prevent 9/11, which, as he told The Guardian in September 2003, “offered an extremely convenient context” for military action in Afghanistan and Iraq – actions which had clearly been planned before 9/11.
In his first 9/11 book, The New Pearl Harbor, Dr. David Ray Griffin (co-founder of the 9/11 Consensus Panel) devoted several pages to the controversy sparked by Meacher in 2003.
Dr. Griffin and Mr. Meacher met in 2005 when they were both being interviewed for a TV program, and between tapings they had “a brief but very friendly conversation.”
In May 2005, Meacher introduced a motion on climate change into Parliament, calling upon the government to commit to yearly CO2 emission reductions of 3%.
We at the Consensus Panel offer our condolences to the many people in Great Britain and the world who will miss the active, intelligent, and constructive participation of this long-serving elder statesman.
