Alexander Gordon Martin (born 2 May 1957) is a British politician who served as the

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) for

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...

from 9 June 2017 to 6 November 2019. A member of the Labour Party, he was elected in the

2017 general election This national electoral calendar for 2017 lists the national/federal elections held in 2017 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included. January *5 November ...

, beating

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

incumbent

Ben Gummer Benedict Michael Gummer (born 19 February 1978) is a British businessman and former politician. He is a partner of Gummer Leathes, a property developer. He is a senior adviser to McKinsey & Company, the management consultancy, a visiting fellow ...

. On 25 October 2018, he became Shadow Minister for Waste and Recycling. He lost his seat at the 2019 general election. In

May 2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...

, Martin was elected to

Suffolk County Council Suffolk County Council is the administrative authority for the county of Suffolk, England. It is run by 75 elected county councillors representing 63 divisions. It is a member of the East of England Local Government Association. History Establ ...

as a

Labour and Co-operative Labour and Co-operative Party (often abbreviated Labour Co-op; cy, Llafur a'r Blaid Gydweithredol) is a description used by candidates in United Kingdom elections who stand on behalf of both the Labour Party and the Co-operative Party. Candidat ...

councillor.

Early life

Martin was born on 2 May 1957; his father was the late Scottish actor

Trevor Martin Trevor Gordon Martin (17 November 1929 – 5 October 2017) was a British stage and film actor known for playing popular British characters. Early life and education Martin's parents were from Dundee; he was raised in Enfield, and after m ...

. Martin sang as a chorister in

Winchester Cathedral The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity,Historic England. "Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity (1095509)". ''National Heritage List for England''. Retrieved 8 September 2014. Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Swithun, commonly known as Winches ...

from the age of 8 to 13. After his parents divorced, Martin moved with his mother and siblings to

Halesworth Halesworth is a market town, civil parish and electoral ward in north-eastern Suffolk, England. The population stood at 4,726 in the 2011 Census. It lies south-west of Lowestoft, on a tributary of the River Blyth, upstream from Southwold. T ...

in Suffolk in 1971. He worked at the

National Peace Council The National Peace Council (NPC), founded in 1908 and disbanded in 2000, acted as the co-ordinating body for almost 200 groups across Britain, with a membership ranging from small village peace groups to national trade unions and local authorities. ...

in London from 1983 to 1987, and then at the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

Dunwich Heath Dunwich Heath is an area of coastal lowland heath just south of the village of Dunwich, in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB, England. It is adjacent to the RSPB reserve at Minsmere. It lies within the area of the Minsmere-Walberswick Heath ...

from 1989 to 1992. Martin moved to

to live with his partner in 1993, and worked at Ipswich Community Resource Centre from 1994 to 1996. In 1995, he took on the role of Coordinator of Ipswich

Friends of the Earth Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is an international network of environmental organizations in 73 countries. The organization was founded in 1969 in San Francisco by David Brower, Donald Aitken and Gary Soucie after Brower's split with ...

, which he relinquished in 1997 after his election to

Early political career

After serving on Halesworth Town Council, standing for election to

Waveney District Council Waveney may refer to: * River Waveney, a river that forms the boundary between Suffolk and Norfolk, England * Waveney District, a local government district in Suffolk, England * Waveney (UK Parliament constituency) * Waveney class lifeboat, a class ...

and

Ipswich Borough Council Ipswich Borough Council, founded in 1974 after the abolition of the County Borough of Ipswich, governs the non-metropolitan district of Ipswich in Suffolk. It is the second tier of a two-tier system, fulfilling functions such as refuse collectio ...

, Martin was elected as a councillor for St John's Division in Ipswich on

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

. As chair of Suffolk's Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy, Martin introduced a three-bin collection system across most of Suffolk, raising the recycling rate in the county from approximately 14.5% to approximately 45% between 2001 and 2004. Martin led the Labour group on the County from 2009 to 2017. He also sat on

from

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

; in this capacity he introduced a more efficient bin-collection system, lobbied successfully for cycle lanes in the town centre, and led the installation of

solar panel A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a photo ...

s on sports centre roofs. He stood down as a borough councillor in 2014 to focus on his duties as leader of the County Council Labour group, and stood down as a county councillor on 20 July 2017 after being elected to

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

. At the

2014 European Parliament election The 2014 European Parliament election was held in the European Union, from 22 to 25 May 2014. It was the 8th parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979, and the first in which the European political parties fielded candid ...

, Martin stood as a Labour candidate for the

East of England The East of England is one of the nine official regions of England. This region was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics purposes from 1999. It includes the ceremonial counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire ...

. He was third on the party's list, with only their first-placed candidate, incumbent Richard Howitt, being elected.

Parliamentary career

Martin was elected as MP for

at the

snap Snap or SNAP may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Snap'', the original release title for the 2013 film ''Enter the Dangerous Mind'' *''Snap'' (TV series), a CITV programme * ''The Stanly News and Press'', a newspaper in Albemarle, North Carol ...

, defeating incumbent Conservative MP

, who had helped write the party's manifesto. As an MP, Martin was a member of the

Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee, formerly the Public Administration Select Committee, is a select committee appointed by the British House of Commons to examine the reports of the Parliamentary and Health Se ...

and the

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee is a select committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The remit of the Committee is to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department ...

. On 25 October 2018, he became Shadow Minister for Waste and Recycling. He is a member of

LGBT Labour ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is ...

Labour Friends of Israel Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) is a group in the Parliament of the United Kingdom that promotes support for a strong bilateral relationship between Britain and Israel, and seeks to strengthen ties between the British Labour Party and the Isra ...

, and o
Labour Friends of Palestine & The Middle East
He supports

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

and is chair of the

Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform The Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform (LCER) is an organisation formed of members and supporters of the British Labour Party, who are interested in issues of democratic renewal and electoral reform. LCER campaigns on a range of constitution ...

. Martin describes himself politically as a

democratic socialist Democratic socialism is a left-wing political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within a ...

and an

environmentalist An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...

. Martin lost his seat in another snap national election, held in

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

, to Tom Hunt of the Conservative Party. In his

concession speech Concession may refer to: General * Concession (contract) (sometimes called a concession agreement), a contractual right to carry on a certain kind of business or activity in an area, such as to explore or develop its natural resources or to operat ...

, Martin criticised the Conservatives, stating that "the only way that we can win elections in this country now is by lying".

After Parliament

In Martin's concession speech after losing his parliamentary seat, he said "It's very unlikely I will be standing for elected office again". However, at the 2021 local elections, he successfully contested the Rushmere Division (based around the area of that name, and part of his former constituency) on

. Martin won over his Conservative opponent by just 35 votes, and thus returned to the council he was a member of until 2017. He was elected as a

councillor.

Personal life

Martin is gay, and has lived with his civil partner for over 25 years.

References

External links

*
Shadow Minister for Waste and Recycling
{{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Sandy 1957 births English environmentalists English socialists English people of Scottish descent Gay politicians Labour Friends of Israel Labour Party (UK) councillors Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies LGBT members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom English LGBT politicians Living people Members of the Fabian Society Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Ipswich Members of Suffolk County Council UK MPs 2017–2019 Labour Co-operative politicians