Grahame Morris

Staunch left-winger Grahame Morris is Labour MP for Easington. Elected in 2010, he was Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow secretary of state for communities and local government, as well as shadow minister for the constitutional convention in 2016, before giving up his frontbench roles whilst undergoing treatment for lymphatic cancer. Before entering parliament, Morris was an NHS worker and a researcher for John Cummings MP. Morris chairs the Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East group, introducing a successful motion in parliament in 2014 calling for the formal recognition of a Palestinian state backed by Labour and some Liberal Democrats. He also chairs the Unite Group of MPs. Morris has been vocal in calling for the renationalisation of the railways and an end to austerity. In 2015, during a spell as a Labour whip, he called on Corbyn to purge the shadow cabinet of moderate opponents. A supporter of respecting the 2016 Leave vote, Morris said that proposals for a second referendum on EU membership would “create the dangerous cynicism that undermines our parliamentary democracy, erode trust in our politics, and despite what they may think, deliver another majority confirming Brexit.”