Paul Blomfield

Paul Blomfield founded what became the UK’s biggest anti-apartheid group, the Sheffield AAM, while still at school. He joined the Labour Party in 1978 at the age of 25, became chair of the Sheffield Labour Party in 1993, and stood for the 2010 election – voted in with a majority of just 165. He was one of the first Labour MPs to back Ed Miliband in the 2010 Labour leadership contest and served as parliamentary private secretary to Hilary Benn during his period as shadow leader of the House of Commons and shadow secretary of state for Communities and Local Government. He was voted Citizens Advice MP of the Year in 2014 after leading a successful cross-party campaign to regulate payday lenders and, in 2015, was voted The Guardian’s “most inspiring leader in higher education”. He is also chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Students, which he founded. Blomfield campaigned for Remain in the 2016 EU referendum. Following the vote to leave, he joined many of his colleagues in backing Owen Smith in his bid to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in 2016. After Corbyn’s re-election, Blomfield was appointed as shadow Brexit minister. He was re-elected at the 2019 general election with majority of 27,273 and nominated Keir Starmer in 2020.