Eric Joyce

Who is Eric Joyce?

Eric Stuart Joyce is a British politician, who has been a Member of Parliament since 2000, and has been the MP for Falkirk since 2005.

Joyce served as a private in the Black Watch before attending University and subsequently receiving a commission in the Royal Army Educational Corps. He left the army in 1999 at the rank of major and served as the Public Affairs Officer at the Commission for Racial Equality.

He was elected to Parliament in the 2000 Falkirk West by-election as a member of the Labour Party, retaining his seat in the 2001 general election, and elected to the enlarged Falkirk constituency in the 2005 general election. From 2003, Joyce served as a Parliamentary Private Secretary to a number of UK government ministers. He resigned as the PPS to Bob Ainsworth on 3 September 2009 citing concerns over the war in Afghanistan.

Joyce was suspended from the Labour Party in 2012 after he was arrested on suspicion of assault, and on 12 March 2012, having pleaded guilty, resigned from the party. In March 2013 he was once again arrested on suspicion of assault, but not prosecuted. Both incidents took place in a House of Commons bar and were related to alcohol. The selection of a replacement candidate has caused the 2013 Labour Party Falkirk candidate selection row, an internal NEC report into which has now been referred to the Scottish Police Service.