Louise Ellman

Dame Louise Joyce Ellman ( Rosenberg; born 14 November 1945) is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Liverpool Riverside from 1997 to 2019.

She is a member of the Labour Party.

She was educated at the independent Manchester High School for Girls, before studying at the University of Hull where she received a BA in Sociology and History in 1967, and then studied Social Administration at the University of York where she was awarded a MPhil in 1972.

As a teenager, she was involved in the Labour Zionist movement, Habonim and, following university, spent a year in Israel at an Ulpan studying Hebrew, where she met her husband.

Ellman was elected as a councillor on the Lancashire County Council in 1970, becoming the Labour group leader in 1977 and leader of the council from 1981 until her election to House of Commons in 1997.

From 1970 to 1976, she was a lecturer for the Open University.

She was elected as a councillor on the Lancashire County Council in 1970, becoming the Labour group leader in 1977 and council leader from 1981 until her election to Parliament.

She was Vice-Chair of Lancashire Enterprises.

She unsuccessfully contested the Darwen constituency at the 1979 general election, being defeated by the sitting Conservative MP Charles Fletcher-Cooke by 13,026 votes.

She was elected to Parliament at the 1997 general election for the safe seat of Liverpool Riverside.

She held the seat with a majority of 21,799 and has held the seat comfortably at successive general elections.

When she was re-elected in 2001, the turnout was the lowest in the country at 34.1%.

She was a member of the Transport Committee and its predecessor, Transport, Local Government and the Regions, since she was first elected.

Ellman was Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement from 2006 to 2016, after which she became its Honorary President.

She was Vice-Chair of Lancashire Enterprises, and served as Chair of the Transport Select Committee from 2008 to 2017.

On 21 May 2008, she was selected to become the Chair of the Commons Transport Select Committee after the death of Gwyneth Dunwoody MP, being returned unopposed after the 2015 general election.

According to website Public Whip, Ellman repeatedly voted for the Iraq War, against an investigation into that war, and for renewal of Trident, Britain's nuclear weapons programme.

She very rarely voted against the Party line.

In the 2015 Labour Party leadership election, she nominated Liz Kendall.

She supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 leadership election.

In 2016, Ellman said that a small number among the members who joined her constituency Labour party after Corbyn's election as leader seemed "obsessed on Middle East issues", that there had been a "very unpleasant atmosphere" in constituency meetings and that remarks which she considered were antisemitic had been made to her.

She also alleged that the local Momentum group was acting as a "party within a party" and asked for her constituency party to be suspended and investigated.

A leading local Momentum member rejected the allegations.

She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours List, and is a Vice President of the Jewish Leadership Council.

Ellman resigned from the Labour Party in October 2019, expressing concern over allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party and a potential Jeremy Corbyn-led government.

She rejoined the party in 2021.

Louise Joyce Rosenberg was born in Manchester to an observant Jewish family.

Her father had a Lithuanian background.

She was also Vice Chair of Labour Friends of Israel and succeeded Joan Ryan as Chair in August 2019.

She said that she intended to remain a member of LFI following her resignation from the Labour Party.

She was the chair of the All-Party Britain-Israel Parliamentary Group.

The Times of Israel called her "tough-as-nails" and "an unabashed friend of Israel".

According to one biographer in the Jewish Chronicle, "Ellman can always be called on to defend Israel on the green benches" (i.e. in Parliament).

The Jewish Telegraph said "Doughty Labour MP Louise Ellman is never scared to openly proclaim her Jewish identity and fight for Israel and against Islamic extremism at every Parliamentary opportunity".

In September 2019, Ellman said she "shared the fears" of other Jews living in the UK about the prospect of a Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn and understood why they "would seriously consider leaving the country".

In October 2019, she said "I'm not absolutely convinced he will bring great danger to the Jewish community but I'm very concerned it is possible he could".

In early October 2019, a motion of no confidence in Ellman, scheduled to take place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, was submitted for discussion at a branch of her constituency Labour Party.

The timing of the motion was criticised by Ellman herself, who called it "particularly insidious"; and by Marie van der Zyl, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, who said it meant that Ellman would have "no opportunity even to respond".

A Labour Party spokesperson said that no confidence motions "had no formal standing", with another source intimating that the motion was unlikely to be taken to a vote.

She was Chair of Labour Friends of Israel until February 2020 and was Honorary President of the Jewish Labour Movement.