Clive Lewis (politician)
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Clive Anthony Lewis (born 11 September 1971) is a British
Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
politician who has been 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
Norwich South Norwich South is a constituency in Norfolk represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, since 2015 by Clive Lewis, of the Labour Party. History The constituency was created by the Representation of the Peopl ...
since winning the seat at the 2015 general election. Lewis was a candidate for Leader of the Labour Party in the 2020 leadership election. He is a member of the
Socialist Campaign Group The Socialist Campaign Group, officially the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs and also known as the Campaign Group, is a left-wing, democratic socialist grouping of the Labour Party's Members of Parliament in the House of Commons of the ...
parliamentary
caucus A caucus is a meeting of supporters or members of a specific political party or movement. The exact definition varies between different countries and political cultures. The term originated in the United States, where it can refer to a meeting ...
. He previously served as vice-president of the National Union of Students, worked as a TV reporter for
BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...
and served as an infantry officer with the Territorial Army. He served a three-month tour of duty in
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
in 2009. He became
shadow defence secretary The Shadow Secretary of State for Defence is a member of the UK Shadow Cabinet responsible for the scrutiny of the Secretary of State for Defence and the department, the Ministry of Defence. The post is currently held by John Healey. Shadow S ...
in June 2016, and shadow business secretary in October 2016. He left the Shadow Cabinet in 2017 in protest over the Labour Party's decision to whip its MPs into voting to trigger Article 50, but rejoined the front bench a year later as shadow minister for sustainable economics. He stood in the 2020 Labour Party leadership election, but did not receive the required 22 parliamentarian nominations, and withdrew.


Early life and education

Clive Antony Lewis was born in London on 11 September 1971. He grew up on a council estate in
Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...
, the son of a single father, and is of mixed race; his father is from
Grenada Grenada ( ; Grenadian Creole French: ) is an island country in the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea at the southern end of the Grenadines island chain. Grenada consists of the island of Grenada itself, two smaller islands, Carriacou and Pe ...
and his mother from England. He was the first member of his family to attend university, studying economics at the
University of Bradford The University of Bradford is a Public university, public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be creat ...
before being elected student union president, and later vice-president of the National Union of Students (NUS). In November 1995, he was a signatory to a letter that argued for the abolition of student loans. Lewis was suspended from the role of vice-president of the NUS in 1996 by its president,
Jim Murphy James Francis Murphy (born 23 August 1967) is a Scottish former politician who served as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2014 to 2015 and Secretary of State for Scotland from 2008 to 2010. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for East Re ...
, for publicly supporting concerns about tuition fees. Murphy's actions were condemned by
Ken Livingstone Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is an English politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and as Mayor of London from the creation of the office i ...
, then a Labour MP. Lewis ran for president of the National Union of Students in 1996 on a platform of unfunded full grants and free education, and duly lost the election to Douglas Trainer.


Career

After completing a post-graduate diploma in journalism, he worked on local newspapers in Northampton and
Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...
, and was then accepted into the BBC's News Trainee Scheme. He went on to work as a broadcast journalist in
Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...
,
Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
, and
Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...
. He then became the main reporter on the BBC's '' Politics Show East''. Lewis joined the Territorial Army, passing out of the
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS or RMA Sandhurst), commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is one of several military academies of the United Kingdom and is the British Army's initial officer training centre. It is located in the town of ...
in 2006 as an infantry officer with
The Rifles The Rifles is an infantry regiment of the British Army. Formed in 2007, it consists of four Regular battalions and three Reserve battalions, plus a number of companies in other Army Reserve battalions. Each battalion of The Rifles was formerly ...
. In 2009, he served a three-month tour of duty in Afghanistan. In an opinion piece he wrote years later, Lewis said "despite being on the left, and despite being told in the cadets that 'there ain't no black in the union jack', I still opted to serve". Shortly after returning from his tour of duty, he experienced depression, saying "I just felt like I was being crushed by it all." He duly recovered on receiving counselling through the
Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...
.


Political career


Parliamentary candidate

Lewis was selected as the Labour Party's prospective parliamentary candidate for Norwich South at the party's hustings in November 2011, beating other candidates including the musician Dave Rowntree. Norwich South had been won by Simon Wright of the Liberal Democrats in the 2010 general election with a majority of just over 300 votes, defeating former
Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national ...
and Education Secretary
Charles Clarke Charles Rodway Clarke (born 21 September 1950) is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Norwich South from 1997 until 2010, and served as Home Secretary from December 2004 until May 2006. Early life T ...
. In April 2015, during an interview by the ''
New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...
'', in response to a question on whether he was taking his upcoming victory for granted, he said he would only lose if "he was caught with ispants down behind a goat with
Ed Miliband Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliband ...
at the other end". He subsequently apologised for the remark, saying he was "sincerely sorry" “if” anyone had been offended by the comment. Lewis opposed the Labour Party's position on immigration. Locally, Lewis supported the campaign to prevent
The Hewett Academy The Hewett Academy (formerly the Hewett School) is a coeducational secondary school located in the south of the English city of Norwich. History The school used to comprise three schools. Lakenham Boys' and Lakenham Girls' Secondary modern sc ...
, a
comprehensive school A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is res ...
in
Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
, from being turned into an academy.


First term (2015–2017)

On 7 May 2015, Lewis was elected MP for Norwich South with a 15.8% majority of 7,654. Lewis, in his victory speech, declared
New Labour New Labour was a period in the history of the British Labour Party from the mid to late 1990s until 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The name dates from a conference slogan first used by the party in 1994, later seen ...
to be "dead and buried" and promised to stand up for Norwich's most vulnerable against an "onslaught of cuts" by the governing
Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...
. In June 2015, Lewis was elected Chair of the
All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group All-Party Groups (APGs) within United Kingdom politics are informal, cross-party, interest groups of the UK Parliament. APGs have at least 20 members who are all Members of the House of Commons and House of Lords. The All-Party Parliamentary H ...
. In the same month, he became a patron of the Anti Academies Alliance. Lewis was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate
Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...
as a candidate in the 2015 Labour leadership election. Corbyn credited Lewis with getting his nominations "off the ground". Lewis has been described as an ally of Corbyn, who was elected leader. In September 2015, he was appointed to the Labour frontbench as a shadow minister in the Energy and Climate Change team. Following resignations from Corbyn's shadow cabinet after the
2016 EU referendum The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, took place on 23 June 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar to ask the electorate whether the country shoul ...
, Lewis was appointed as
shadow defence secretary The Shadow Secretary of State for Defence is a member of the UK Shadow Cabinet responsible for the scrutiny of the Secretary of State for Defence and the department, the Ministry of Defence. The post is currently held by John Healey. Shadow S ...
. In September 2016, at the Labour Party's 2016 Conference, when Lewis was preparing to give his first speech as shadow defence secretary, a section of his speech announcing that he "would not seek to change" Labour's current policy on nuclear weapons was changed by Corbyn's communications advisor
Seumas Milne Seumas Patrick Charles Milne (born 5 September 1958)Winchester College: A Register. Edited by P.S.W.K. McClure and R.P. Stevens, on behalf of the Wardens and Fellows of Winchester College. 7th edition, 2014. pp. 582 (Short Half 1971 list heading) ...
. Lewis was informed of the change by a
sticky note A Post-it Note (or sticky note) is a small piece of paper with a re-adherable strip of glue on its back, made for temporarily attaching notes to documents and other surfaces. A low-tack pressure-sensitive adhesive allows the notes to be easil ...
. A month later, Corbyn removed Lewis from the defence brief, replacing him with
Nia Griffith Dame Nia Rhiannon Griffith (born 4 December 1956) is a Welsh politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Llanelli since 2005. A member of the Labour Party, she has been a Shadow Minister for International Trade since 2021. Grif ...
. Lewis was then appointed as shadow business secretary. The move was viewed as a tactical demotion. On 8 February 2017, Lewis resigned from the shadow cabinet, citing the Labour Party's decision to whip its MPs to vote to trigger Article 50 to start
Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...
negotiations. In April 2017, Lewis was one of 13 MPs to vote against triggering the 2017 general election. In the election he was re-elected with a majority of 30.4 per cent.


Second term (2017–2019)

Clive Lewis was accused of groping a woman at Momentum's "World Transformed" event at the 2017 Labour party conference. In response, Lewis said he was "pretty taken aback" by the accusation and "completely" and "categorically" denied it. On 12 December 2017, he was cleared by Labour's
National Executive Committee National Executive Committee is the name of a leadership body in several organizations, mostly political parties: * National Executive Committee of the African National Congress, in South Africa * Australian Labor Party National Executive * Nationa ...
sexual harassment panel. At the 2019 Labour party conference, Lewis published a paper which accused the party of a "moral failure" on migrants' rights and called for the party to adopt an open border immigration policy. He also accused party leader
Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...
of being "silent on detention centres" and the "no recourse to public funds" policy of the Conservative government. In January 2018, Lewis was reappointed to Labour's shadow frontbench as a shadow Treasury minister, responsible for sustainable economics.Corbyn reappoints Clive Lewis to Labour front bench
BBC NEWS. Published 12 January 2018. Retrieved 13 January 2018.


2017 Labour Conference controversy

Video footage, taken at a fringe event at the 2017 Labour Conference, emerged in which Lewis told the actor Sam Swann to "get on your knees, bitch". Lewis' language attracted criticism from Labour colleague, but Swann later described the situation as "jovial". Stella Creasy, Labour colleague, said: "It's not OK. Even if it's meant as a joke, it reinforces menace that men have the physical power to force compliance." Swann told ''The Guardian'': "It is clearly jovial and nothing vicious. Swann also said "The whole event was so brilliant for seeing MPs letting their hair down and fucking around with people who support them. I think Clive Lewis is an absolute legend." Lewis subsequently tweeted an apology, in which he described his behaviour as "offensive and unacceptable".


Third term (from 2019)

In the 2019 general election, Lewis was returned with a reduced majority. In December 2019, he announced that he would run in the 2020 Labour Party leadership election following Corbyn's resignation. Despite a petition by members and supporters to get him on the ballot due to his democratisation and electoral reform policies, he received only five of the necessary 22 nominations from Labour MPs, and withdrew from the contest, which allowed his five supporters to nominate other candidates before nominations closed on 13 January. A few days before
Liz Truss Mary Elizabeth Truss (born 26 July 1975) is a British politician who briefly served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from September to October 2022. On her fiftieth day in office, she stepped down ...
became prime minister in September 2022, Lewis said that the government had the power to address the
United Kingdom cost of living crisis United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...
through measures such as: a windfall tax, nationalisation of energy companies, implementing retrofits of homes, and establishing a
universal basic income Universal basic income (UBI) is a social welfare proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive an unconditional transfer payment, that is, without a means test or need to work. It would be received independently of a ...
and
universal basic services Universal basic services (UBS) are a form of social security in which all citizens or residents of a community, region, or country receive unconditional access to a range of free, basic, public services, funded by taxes and provided by a governme ...
. He said such things would not be implemented under Truss because, "it will not favour the private interests who are benefiting from the cost of living crisis, such as the funders of dark money think tanks that appear to be driving the incoming Truss government's agenda." In September 2022, following the death of Queen
Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...
, Lewis wrote an article criticising the monarchy and the "flawed reality of the very limited democracy we inhabit". Lewis stated that he despaired the queues to see Queen's coffin and noted that the royal succession "is as much about coercion as consent". He also criticised the language of "duty" and "sacrifice" used about the royal family which he said to be a lie and he called for constitutional, democratic reform. In the title of the article he referred to himself as a
republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
.


Personal life

Clive Lewis married Yorkshire school teacher and actress Katy Steel in May 2017. Their daughter Zana was born in 2018.


Bibliography

*


Notes


References


External links

, - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Clive 1971 births Living people Alumni of the University of Bradford BBC newsreaders and journalists Black British MPs Black British politicians British Army personnel of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) British broadcaster-politicians British republicans British television journalists Electoral reform in the United Kingdom English humanists English people of Grenadian descent English socialists Graduates of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies People from Northampton The Rifles officers UK MPs 2015–2017 UK MPs 2017–2019 UK MPs 2019–present