Alexandra Louise Mayer (born 2 June 1981) is a former British

Member of the European Parliament A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...

(MEP) for the East of England region for the Labour Party. She took up the post in November 2016 following the resignation of Richard Howitt, and lost her seat in the 2019 European Elections.

Early life

Mayer was born in

High Wycombe High Wycombe, often referred to as Wycombe ( ), is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England. Lying in the valley of the River Wye, Buckinghamshire, River Wye surrounded by the Chiltern Hills, it is west-northwest of Charing Cross in London, ...

, Buckinghamshire and brought up in Crawley,

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

. Mayer graduated with a bachelor's degree in history from

Exeter University , mottoeng = "We Follow the Light" , established = 1838 - St Luke's College1855 - Exeter School of Art1863 - Exeter School of Science 1955 - University of Exeter (received royal charter) , type = Public , ...

in 2001 and has a master's degree in Politics and Parliamentary Studies from the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

Politics

In 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 ...

she stood in for the East of England region in second position on the Labour list, which did not yield a seat, but took over from Richard Howitt following his resignation. Mayer is a member of the Labour Party's National Policy Forum, a member of the GMB, UNISON and the Co-operative Party. In the European Parliament she was Labour's spokesperson for the foreign affairs (16-18) and the economy (18-19) and a member of the US-EU Relations Delegation. She is the international co-ordinator for the Washington DC Statehood campaign. A member of the Labour Animal Welfare Society, Alex is a long-standing animal welfare campaigner, she was awarded the Cruelty Free International Parliamentarian Award and took an 8 million signature petition to the United Nations in New York on the topic of animal free cosmetic testing. Mayer has been a member of Amnesty International for over twenty years and worked on issues relating to the ongoing human rights abuses in Kashmir, as a member of the European Parliament Friends of Kashmir group.

References

1981 births 21st-century women MEPs for England People educated at Hazelwick School Living people Labour Party (UK) MEPs MEPs for England 2014–2019 People from Crawley People from High Wycombe {{UK-MEP-stub