Clive Lewis
Clive Lewis (born 11 September 1971) is a British Labour politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Norwich South since winning the seat at the 2015 general election. Lewis was a candidate for Leader of the Labour Party in the 2020 leadership election.
He previously served as vice-president of the National Union of Students, worked as a TV reporter for BBC News and served as an infantry officer with the Territorial Army. He served a three-month tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2009.
He became shadow defence secretary in June 2016, and shadow business secretary in October 2016. He left the Shadow Cabinet in 2017 in protest over the Labour Party's decision to whip its MPs into voting to trigger Article 50, but rejoined the front bench a year later as shadow minister for sustainable economics.
He stood in the 2020 Labour Party leadership election, but withdrew after not receiving the required 22 parliamentarian nominations.
Early life and education
Clive Lewis grew up on a council estate in Northampton, the son of a single father, and is of mixed-race heritage; his father is from Grenada and his mother from England. He studyied economics at the University of Bradford before being elected student union president, and later vice-president of the National Union of Students In November 1995, he was a signatory to a letter that argued for the abolition of student loans.
Lewis was suspended from the role of vice-president of the NUS in 1996 by the president of the NUS, Jim Murphy, for publicly supporting concerns about tuition fees. Murphy's actions were condemned by Ken Livingstone, then a Labour MP.Lewis ran for president of the National Union of Students in 1996 on a platform of full grants and free education. He lost the election to Douglas Trainer.
Clive Lewis married Yorkshire school teacher and actress Katy Steel in May 2017.
Parliament
In June 2015, Lewis was elected Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group.[19][20] In the same month, he became a patron of the Anti Academies Alliance.[21]
Lewis was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the 2015 Labour leadership election. Corbyn credited Lewis with getting his nominations "off the ground". Lewis has been described as an ally of Corbyn, who was elected leader. In September 2015, he was appointed to the Labour frontbench as a shadow minister in the Energy and Climate Change team.
Following resignations from Corbyn's shadow cabinet after the 2016 EU referendum, Lewis was appointed as shadow defence secretary. In September 2016, at the Labour Party's 2016 Conference, when Lewis was preparing to give his first speech as shadow defence secretary, a section of his speech announcing that he "would not seek to change" Labour's current policy on nuclear weapons was changed by Corbyn's communications advisor Seumas Milne. Lewis was informed of the change by a post-it note. A month later, Corbyn removed Lewis from the defence brief, replacing him with Nia Griffith. Lewis was then appointed as shadow business secretary. The move was viewed as a tactical demotion.
On 8 February 2017, Lewis resigned from the shadow cabinet, citing the Labour Party's decision to whip its MPs to vote to trigger Article 50 to start Brexit negotiations.
Momentum
Clive Lewis attended Momentum UK's "World Transformed" event at the 2017 Labour Party conference.
All-party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations
Bell Ribeiro-Addy is the Labour Party member for Streatham in south London and also chair of Westminster’s all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for Afrikan Reparations.
Ribeiro-Addy is joined in the group by fellow Labour members Apsana Begum, Dawn Butler, Marsha de Cordova and Clive Lewis, Kate Osamor, Nadia Whittome, plus Sir Peter Bottomley from the Tories, Caroline Lucas from the Greens, Anne McLaughlin from the Scottish National Party and independents Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn and Claudia Webbe.
Open immigration
At the 2019 Labour party conference, Lewis published a paper which accused the party of a "moral failure" on migrants' rights and called for the party to adopt an open border immigration policy. He also accused then party leader Jeremy Corbyn of being “silent on detention centres” and the “no recourse to public funds” policy of the Conservative government.
Leadership bid
In December 2019, Clive Lewis announced that he would run in the 2020 Labour Party leadership election following Corbyn's resignation. Despite a petition by members and supporters to get him on the ballot due to his democratisation and electoral reform policies, he received only five of the necessary 22 nominations from Labour parliamentarians, thus he withdrew from the contest to allow his supporters to nominate other candidates shortly before nominations closed on 13 January.
Socialist Campaign Group
In 2021 Clive Lewis was member of the Socialist Campaign Group in the House of Parliament.
'Take Cuba off the List'
In 2024, several UK MPs including Jeremy Corbyn, Ian Byrne, Grahame Morris, Clive Lewis, Christopher Murray Alexander Law, Ian Lavery, Jon Trickett, Nadia Whittome, Richard Leonard, Richard Burgon, Steve Witherden, Paula Barker, Zarah Sultana, Kim Johnson, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Luke Fletcher, signed a Progressive International letter to 'Take Cuba off the List'.
- We, the undersigned parliamentarians from across the globe, condemn the designation of Cuba as a “state-sponsor of terrorism” and call on our respective governments to take immediate action to advocate for its removal.
- The United Sates’ designation of Cuba as a “state-sponsor of terrorism” is cynical, cruel, and a clear violation of international law....
- With this letter, we underline the urgency of removing Cuba from the list of “state-sponsors of terrorism” in the name of dignity, decency, and the integrity of the UN Charter — and call on our governments to use all diplomatic means to redress this grave ongoing injustice.[1]
Cuba Covid letter
April 15 2020, fifty one British members of parliament have written to Dominic Raab, the UK Foreign Secretary and acting Prime Minister to call for the US blockade of Cuba to be temporarily suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Grahame Morris MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cuba, coordinated the letter which asks the British government to make a public statement and to raise the issue directly with its counterparts in the United States’ government.
The letter from the British parliamentarians cites examples from around the world where governments and international organisations have demanded that humanitarian aid be allowed in to Cuba to help the country fight COVID-19. It quotes Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Arancha Gonzalez, Spanish Foreign Minister, and Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, who have all publicly called for sanctions to be suspended to Cuba and other sanctioned countries to allow for the delivery of essential supplies and medicine to stop the spread of the virus.
Yours sincerely,
Grahame Morris MP, Chair, APPG Cuba.
Dan Carden MP, Vice Chair, Kate Osborne MP, Vice Chair, Kim Johnson MP, Vice Chair, Paula Barker MP, Vice Chair, Alison Thewliss MP Allan Dorans MP, Amy Callaghan MP, Andy McDonald MP, Apsana Begum MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, Beth Winter MP, Carol Monaghan MP, Chris Law MP, Chris Stephens MP, Claudia Webbe MP, Clive Lewis MP, Dave Doogan MP, Diane Abbott MP, Geraint Davies MP, Ian Byrne MP, Ian Mearns MP, Ian Lavery MP, Imran Hussain MP, Joanna Cherry MP, John McDonnell MP, Jon Trickett MP, Kate Osamor MP, Kenny MacAskill MP, Kirsten Oswald MP, Kirsty Blackman MP, Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP, Margaret Ferrier MP, Marion Fellowes MP, Martyn Day MP, Mary Kelly Foy MP, Mick Whitley MP, Mike Amesbury MP, Mike Hill MP, Navendu Mishra MP, Olivia Blake MP, Owen Thompson MP, Rachel Hopkins MP, Richard Burgon MP, Ronnie Cowan MP, Sam Tarry MP, Sarah Champion MP, Stephen Bonnar MP, Stephen Flynn MP, Yasmin Qureshi MP, Zarah Sultana MP[2]
Covid-19, BLM & the Climate Crisis
Clive Lewis MP, Dr Faiza Shaheen CLASS, Kevin Courtney NEU, Gary Younge, Asad Rehman War on Want, Sarah Woolley, Satbir Singh, Amrou Al-Khadi.
Labour4Clause4
October 2019;
Douglas Beattie, Matthew Brown, Lauren Conway, Dan Wilson Craw, Jamie Driscoll, Angela Duerden, Hugo Fearnley, Paul Feldman, Craig Hannaway, Ian Hodson, Ian McInroy, Carla Keegans, Ian Lavery MP, Clive Lewis MP, Sarah Jane McDonough, Paul Mason, Adam Mendum, Grahame Morris MP, Laura Parker, Laura Pidcock MP, Richinda Taylor, Paul Williams MP.
Love Socialism - Hate Brexit
Nadia Whittome with Clive Lewis.
Anti-racism campaign
Leading British Black politician Clive Lewis MP is among a host of prominent figures who are backing the setting up of a new broad based national anti-racist campaign, which will be launched on Tuesday (November 2 2021) at a public meeting in London.
It coincides with the 30th anniversary this month of the founding of the Anti-Racist Alliance (ARA), which went on to become Europe’s largest Black-led movement and helped set up the ground-breaking Justice for Stephen Lawrence campaign.
Members of The Liberation Movement (TLM) say that the new organisation is aiming to build on the momentum created by the Black Lives Matter protests last summer.
Lewis said: “Racism and inequality have never been starker in Britain and elsewhere. The government’s hostile environment continues to scapegoat migrants, refugees and the Muslim community. You only need to witness the shocking situation where desperate people escaping war and poverty are drowning in the English Channel to realise how bad things are.”
He added: “From the Grenfell Tower fire, Windrush Scandal to the Covid pandemic, we see a heavier impact on people of colour. That’s why we need a black-led movement to fight-back against such injustices.”
TLM’s “Building a united anti-racist campaign” public meeting will take place at Conway Hall, Holborn in central London.
Among the high-profile speakers at the event will be Jacqui McKenzie, a leading Windrush campaigner and lawyer, Yvette Williams, co-ordinator of Justice4Grenfell, Chantelle Lunt, who runs the Merseyside Black Lives Matter Alliance in Liverpool, Azzees Minott, chair of Greens of Colour, Suresh Grover, director of The Monitoring Group, Barry Faulkner, a Unite the Union national officer, and Moshfiqur Noor, assistant general secretary of the Bangladesh Workers Council and Black and Jewish filmmaker Orson Nava.
The group says the line-up represents TLM’s emphasis on bringing together the broadest possible coalition of African Caribbean and Asian campaigners, community activists, trade unions and political parties.
As well as Clive Lewis, other politicians in support include Opposition frontbencher Rachael Maskell, Ian Lavery and the Green Party's Caroline Lucas. Celebrities like rapper Lowkey, comedian Alexei Sayle and actor Cathy Tyson also back the campaign.
A spokesperson for TLM said: “There has been robust criticism of racism in sections of the news media, especially the despicable online abuse suffered by the three young England footballers who took penalties for their team in this year’s Euro competition.
“On social media, sports, political and other Black public figures face unacceptable racist abuse, which has forced some of them off it. TLM demand this must be properly tackled by the authorities finding and clamping down heavily on those responsible.”
The spokesperson added: “TLM says anti-racism is most effective when white people join hands with African Caribbeans, Asians other people of colour. We believe that by uniting together racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism and all other forms of prejudice can be defeated.”
Racism and inequality have never been starker in Britain and elsewhere. The government’s hostile environment continues to scapegoat migrants, refugees and the Muslim community
Activists from the race equality campaign group Grassroots Black Left have played a key role in helping to establish TLM. Its co-chair Deborah Hobson, a National Union of Journalists executive council member and former treasurer of the union’s Black Member Council, said: “I’m proud to be one of the organisers of this much-needed new anti-racist initiative.
As examples of what the new organisation will do, Hobson said: “The Liberation Movement activists were at the event this month commemorating Jewish people, and their allies, including, trade unionists and socialists, who heroically stopped fascists marching in Cable Street, east London, in 1936. We will also be supporting the United Families and Friends annual event about deaths in custody in Trafalgar Square, London, at 12 noon on Saturday.”[3]
Signatory for the 'Stop Trump Coalition'
Clive Lewis signed a letter posted at The Guardian on February 1 2017[4] from the Stop Trump Coalition, "a coalition of organisations and individuals [who] joined forces to protest against Donald Trump’s planned visit to the UK."[5],[6]
The letter read, in part:
- "We write to impress upon Theresa May and her government our opposition to US President Donald Trump being accorded a state visit or any official visit to this country. The US population has suffered more than a decade and a half of a fall in incomes, but billionaire Trump offers no solution to this problem.
- "Racism, sexism, misogyny, Islamophobia, antisemitism, homophobia, war mongering, climate change denial or policies designed to boost the wealth of the already super-rich should not be rewarded or celebrated in this country.
"End of Austerity"
May 2015 Richard Burgon MP, Louise Haigh MP, Harry Harpham MP, Imran Hussain MP, Clive Lewis MP, Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, Rachael Maskell MP, Kate Osamor MP, Cat Smith MP, Jo Stevens MP.
Citizenship Amendment Act protest
London, Jan 25 2020 Thousands of students, activists and representatives from several Indian diaspora and human rights organisations gathered opposite Downing Street in London to protest against India’s new Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
The rally, organised by student groups and Indian outfits in the UK, marched around a mile down the streets to gather outside the Indian High Commission in London.
The protesters carried placards reading “Protect the Constitution”, “Stop Dividing India”, “United Against Racism in India” and “No Citizenship on the Basis of Religion”.
The CAA came into force in India last December amid protests in India and around the world.
They also called for the abolition of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR), which they said “in conjunction with the CAA, open the way for selective mass disenfranchisement of Indias Muslim population.
UK Opposition Labour Party MP Sam Tarry addressed the demonstrators with the message that human rights in any country is an international issue.
“We are not here as any anti-India demonstration, we are here as a pro-India demonstration. It is incredibly important that our voices are heard against laws that are not good for the future of the country,” said the east London MP.
Messages of support from Labour MPs Stephen Timms, Clive Lewis and newly-elected Indian-origin parliamentarian Nadia Whittome were also read out, calling on the UK government to take up the issue with Indian counterparts.
“On the eve of Republic Day, we are reminded of our core values of freedom, equality and diversity. We stand in solidarity with all the people in India and around the world in their fight against injustice and racism,” said Harsev Bains, of the Indian Workers Association (GB).
Some of the other groups backing Saturday’s march included CasteWatch UK, Tamil People in the UK, Indian Muslim Federation(UK), Federation of Redbridge Muslim Organisations (FORMO), Kashmir Solidarity Movement, South Asian Students Against Fascism among others.[7]
Grassroots Black Left
Grassroots Black Left had its well attended inaugural meeting in Nottingham, in September 2017.
In March, the following year, GBL was formally launched at the House of Commons, with MPs Clive Lewis, Naz Shah, Mohammad Yasin and Chris Williamson, as well as speakers from the Indian Workers Association (Leicestershire), Africans for Jeremy Corbyn's Values and the Justice for Grenfell Campaign.
GBL is a broad-based, national movement of socialist Africans, Caribbeans and other people who face discrimination on the basis of their colour.[8]
Backing Corbyn
Jeremy Corbyn wrote 13 September 2015 "Thank You All For Making This Happen (The Morning Star)".
THANK YOU to the Morning Star and its readers for the most incredible support throughout this leadership campaign — and for the detailed coverage of the policy proposals that we have made and the debate that these have encouraged. The campaign began in the aftermath of the Labour election defeat in May, when the party opted for the election of a new leader, rather than an extended policy debate.
After much discussion, supporters of the Socialist Campaign Group in Parliament decided that we should attempt to put up a candidate for leader, and I was duly nominated.
The 99th event was held on Thursday night in my own constituency in Islington in the biggest church we could find. Over 1,000 people crammed in to hear from Unite general secretary Len McCluskey, my great friend and colleague John McDonnell and newly elected MPs Kate Osamor, Clive Lewis, Richard Burgon, Cat Smith and Rebecca Long-Bailey.
Touching speeches were made by a number of others, including Neil Findlay MSP and longstanding Islington members and supporters including Jan Whelan, George Durack and others. Both Jan and George nominated me when I first stood for selection in 1982.[9]