Ian Mearns

Ian Mearns has been the Labour MP for Gateshead since 2010, but his political career goes back into the 1980s when he became a Militant Tendency-aligned regional chair of the Young Socialists, and subsequently a member of Gateshead council. He retained his council role until his election to parliament, winning the seat with some 56.8 per cent of the vote. Mearns is known as a left winger in the Labour party, and in 2015 called on then-leader Ed Miliband to renationalise the railways and oppose austerity. Mearns has defended the Labour party against accusations of anti-Semitism, stating in 2018: “There are people in our party who for their own political reasons are deliberately conflating people who are opposed to the current Israeli state regime as being anti-Semitic.” Known previously as a rebellious Labour MP (notably in a 2013 vote on a bill on workfare in which he defied instructions to abstain to vote against), he has as of late toed the line regarding Labour policy in parliament. Mearns sits on the Education and Liaison Committees as well as chairing the Backbench Business Committee since 2015.