Lewis Moonie MP

Kirkcaldy 1987-2005

My time as Member of Parliament for Kirkcaldy can best be described in one word – change. The eighteen years which I spent representing the town and its surrounding area will be looked back on as some of the most significant in history.

Who would have foreseen that the Soviet edifice would collapse under its own contradictions? Who could have imagined that the South African government would accept a peaceful transition to majority rule? That the IRA would abandon the use of the bomb and the gun for democratic legitimacy? Or that we would finally see our own parliament in Edinburgh?

It seems rather humbling that I have been privileged to represent my area in Parliament during such momentous times and to have served in two Labour governments.

I was selected to fight the Kirkcaldy seat in March 1985 as the miners’ strike entered its death throes. Frances Colliery closed after a fire, with Seafield following soon after, ending our centuries long association with that industry which had seemed such a key part of the fabric of our economy

We have seen so many changes. So many long standing employers such as British Aluminium, Rank and the naval base at Rosyth have disappeared, and our town has gradually evolved into a place where people live, but from where they travel elsewhere to work.

The fate of our industrial past serves as a warning to us that nothing should be taken for granted. Changes hard won can be reversed; laws may be repealed.

Our mission in Fife now must be to ensure that the many changes that the Labour Party has wrought locally and nationally stand the test of time, just as we stand on the shoulders of our Labour predecessors.