Paul Brannen (born 13 September 1962) is a British Labour Party politician. He is a former

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 North East England region: he was elected in

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

and lost his seat in

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

Early life

Brannen was brought up in

Tyneside Tyneside is a built-up area across the banks of the River Tyne in northern England. Residents of the area are commonly referred to as Geordies. The whole area is surrounded by the North East Green Belt. The population of Tyneside as publishe ...

, North East England. He attended 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 , ...

, where he studied theology and religious studies. Being involved in student politics, he became President of the

Leeds University Union Leeds University Union (LUU) is the representative body for the students at the University of Leeds, England. It is led by a group of student sabbatical officers known as the Student Executive, and supported by around 140 full-time staff membe ...

. Brannen also holds an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from Durham University Business School.

Political career and activism

After university, Brannen worked for the Anti-Apartheid Movement, leading the campaign against executions by the apartheid government in South Africa. He famously interrupted a press conference being held by Mike Gatting to announce his plans to lead a rebel cricket tour to South Africa in breach of the international sporting boycott. He later moved to Christian Aid, where he led campaigns on poverty and, more recently, climate change. Brannen served five years as a

Councillor A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries. Canada Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...

Newcastle City Council Newcastle City Council is the local government authority for the city and metropolitan borough of Newcastle upon Tyne. The council consists of 78 councillors, three for each of the 26 wards in the city. It is currently controlled by the Labou ...

. He has twice stood for election as a

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 o ...

; for

Berwick-upon-Tweed Berwick-upon-Tweed (), sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, and the northernmost town in England. The 2011 United Kingdom census reco ...

in 1997, and for Hexham in 2001. He was unsuccessful at both elections having come second.

European Parliament

Brannen stood 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 ...

as a Labour Party candidate for the North East England region. With Labour having won the most votes in the region, he was elected a

. On 1 July 2014, he was elected to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. He supported

Owen Smith Owen Smith (born 2 May 1970) is a former Labour Party politician and subsequently a British lobbyist, who has been the UK government relations director for pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb since 2020. Smith was Member of Parliamen ...

in the

2016 Labour Party (UK) leadership election The 2016 Labour Party leadership election was called when a challenge to Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party arose following criticism of his approach to the Remain campaign in the referendum on membership of the European Union and q ...

References

External links

Personal website
1962 births Living people Labour Party (UK) MEPs MEPs for England 2014–2019 Alumni of the University of Leeds Labour Party (UK) parliamentary candidates {{UK-MEP-stub