John McDonnell MP

(Elected 2004)

John McDonnell has been the Member of Parliament for Hayes and Harlington since 1997.

His background is similar to that of many Birkbeck students, in that after leaving school he held a series of unskilled jobs before studying for his A levels at night school, going on to study for a BSc in Government and Politics at Brunel university. He went on to complete a Master's in Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck while helping to run a children’s home and working initially for the NUM and then the TUC.

Active in his local community as a grassroots campaigner, John McDonnell eventually joined the Labour Party and was elected to represent his home constituency of Hayes and Harlington on the Greater London council (GLC) in 1981, becoming Chair of Finance and Ken Livingstone’s deputy leader. Following the abolition of the GLC John McDonnell joined Camden Borough Council as Head of its Policy Unit, later becoming Chief Executive of the Association of London Authorities and the Association of London Government.

John McDonnell was subsequently elected to Parliament for Hayes and Harlington in 1997, winning the seat back from the Conservatives. In Parliament, he is the Chair of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs and was a strong opponent of many of the policies of New Labour under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. On Tony Blair’s resignation he sought to stand for election as the Left candidate for leader of the Labour Party but failed to secure sufficient nominations from his Parliamentary colleagues.

His work in Parliament has included establishing a new voice for trade unions in Parliament by setting up a range of trade union groups, many of which he chairs. In addition he has been a strong supporter of numerous social movements ranging from Disabled People Against the Cuts and Defend the Right to Protest to UK Uncut and Occupy. He chairs the Labour Representation Committee and Public Services Not Private Profit, an anti-privatisation campaign that brings together 16 trade unions and several campaigning organisations. More recently he has launched the People’s Parliament, aimed at opening up the Houses of Parliament to the ideas of numerous social movements and political campaigns

He is also an advocate of free access to higher education, expressing his opposition to tuition fees. He has spoken of his belief that education ‘is a gift from one generation to another and not a commodity to be bought and sold. It is a public good, essential to any society’ and has said that ‘going to university is, and should be, so much more than a mechanical process of grinding out a degree qualification for a pre-determined career path.’

John said ‘Birkbeck gave me the opportunity to explore a radical new world of ideas and for me it opened my eyes to the potential we have to change society.’