Mick Whitley

Mick Whitley took over from Frank Field (who had represented the safe Labour seat from 1979 to 2019) as the Labour MP for Birkenhead after Field left the party to stand as the Birkenhead Social Justice party candidate. Whitley held the seat at the 2019 election with a comfortable 17,705. Whitley has lived in Birkenhead for his whole life and comes from a shipbuilding family. In his early career he served in the Merchant Navy and later worked at a Vauxhall plant where he became involved in trade unionism as a shop steward and, later, as a convenor for the plant. He then became an organiser for the Transport and General Workers’ Union which later merged into Unite the Union, where he became the union’s regional secretary for the north west. His candidacy was endorsed by Momentum and the trade unions Unite, RBY, RMT, BFAWU and ASLEF. He has stated that he “will always be Birkenhead’s voice in Westminster and not Westminster’s voice in Birkenhead.” He currently serves on the International Trade Committee and is interested in securing industrial jobs, improving council housing and protecting green spaces from “unwanted” luxury developments.