Charlotte Nichols

Charlotte Louise Nichols (born 5 April 1991) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Warrington North since the 2019 general election. Prior to her political career, she worked as a trade union official.

Early life

Nichols was born in Romford, London, England and grew up in Reading, Berkshire. She has three sisters and three step-siblings. Her father Ged Nichols is the general secretary of the financial services trade union Accord and was appointed as the president of the TUC in 2019. Her earliest experience of politics was during her school years when she helped run UK Youth Parliament sessions with Conservative MP Theresa May. She studied politics at the University of Liverpool, graduating in 2013. After graduation, she worked in Salford for five years for the USDAW trade union. She also spent time living in the United States and worked for the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign.

Political career

Nichols stood as the Labour candidate for Warrington North at the 2019 General Election. She was elected with a majority of 1,509 votes, a reduction of 8,073 on her predecessor Helen Jones. Prior to the election, Nichols worked as a national research and policy officer for the GMB trade union and was a previous women's officer of the youth wing of the party, Young Labour. She identifies ideologically as being on the left-wing of the Labour Party, having supported Jeremy Corbyn in both the 2015 and 2016 leadership elections. Nichols supported Rebecca Long-Bailey in the 2020 Labour Party leadership election, but nominated Emily Thornberry to broaden the field of candidates. She subsequently spoke at events across the North West, including those organised by the left-wing campaigning organisation Momentum, in support of Long-Bailey. Despite this, her local Constituency Party backed Lisa Nandy.

Prior to the General Election of December 2019, Nichols used an article on the website LabourList defended defended Corbyn's attendance at a Seder to celebrate the Jewish festival of Pesach, organised by the far-left Jewish diaspora group Jewdas. The event was later criticized in article which appeared in ''The Times'' after allegations emerged that attendees had engaged in chants of "fuck the police" and "fuck the armies".

After her election, she was the centre of a controversy when she tweeted in October that a group of S.S. Lazio fans who had been filmed making Nazi salutes in Glasgow should "get their heads kicked in". Nichols defended her comments in December, "These were people doing Nazi salutes on the streets of Britain... As a Jewish person whose grandfather fought in World War Two, ultimately sometimes I believe that fascism has to be physically confronted".

In the Shadow Cabinet of Jeremy Corbyn, she served as the PPS to Tracy Brabin as Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport for a brief period during the 2020 Labour Party leadership election, before being moved in the Shadow Cabinet of Sir Keir Starmer to being PPS to Emily Thornberry as Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade. When Ruth Jones was promoted to Shadow Air Qualities Minister, Nichols replaced her as PPS to Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Louise Haigh.

An article published in the ''Daily Telegraph'' in 2019 reported that Nichols had described members of the Green Party as "bourgeois scab fucks" and told one Twitter user, "Hope you lose your virginity".

On 12 November 2020, Nichols was appointed Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities. She stepped down from this role in September 2021, coinciding with the resignation of the Shadow Secretary of State Marsha de Cordova, citing personal reasons.

On 2 April 2021, Nichols apologised to the Traveller communities after she distributed an election leaflet which pledged to deal with "Traveller incursions". The leaflet had been circulated in the Orford ward of her constituency, in response to illegal encampments on nearby Poole Park. Nichols initially claimed to be unaware of the meaning of the word "incursion", but later issued a further statement, saying: “I have spoken to the local Labour party, the leaflet has been withdrawn and the leaflet will be destroyed. I regret that this leaflet has been distributed in the town. The leaflet is not in line with my personal values or those of the Labour party." Although she did not address repeated unlawful encampments by Travellers throughout her constituency, Nichols pledged to be "an ally" to the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community.

In November 2021, Leader of Warrington Borough Council Russ Bowden, who had formerly acted as Nichols' election agent during the 2019 General Election, was charged with four counts of electoral malpractice.

Also in November 2021, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace wrote to Nichols and two SNP MPs after they were reported to be inebriated on a flight to Gibraltar as part of a Armistice Day commemoration. She responded that she had not been drinking heavily and had reduced tolerance due to a medication she was taking for a mental health episode, which the BBC
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