Hilary Benn

Hilary Benn has been the Labour MP for Leeds Central since 1999. Born in Hammersmith, Benn’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather were also MPs. He joined the Commons at a fourth attempt in 1999, which included an unsuccessful 1997 selection contest against Yvette Cooper. Benn joined the government as a junior minister in 2001 and was later promoted to the cabinet, serving as international development secretary under Tony Blair and environment secretary under Gordon Brown. Benn was unsuccessful in his bid to become deputy leader of the party in 2007. He later served in the shadow cabinets of Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, most recently as shadow foreign secretary between 2015 and 2016. In 2015, he notably closed the debate on extending airstrikes against ISIS to Syria for the opposition. In the wake of the EU referendum in 2016, Benn was sacked from the frontbench after plotting Corbyn’s resignation. He later introduced the Benn Act, which forced Boris Johnson to extend the Brexit deadline beyond October 31 2019. He was re-elected at the 2019 general election with a reduced majority of 19,270 and nominated Keir Starmer in the subsequent Labour leadership election.