Luke Akehurst

Luke Akehurst (born 2 March 1972) is a British Labour party official and former councillor.

Since 2022, he has been a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, having also previously been on the NEC from 2010 until 2012.

He is the Labour Party candidate for North Durham in the 2024 United Kingdom general election.

Luke Akehurst studied at the University of Bristol.

In 1993 he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Politics.

In 1993, Akehurst ran for the in the Avon County Council election in the Cabot ward and came 2nd.

From 1995 to 1996, Akehurst was National Secretary of Labour Students.

In 1995, Akehurst came 7th in the Bristol City Council election in the Stoke Bishop ward.

From 2000 to 2011, Akehurst worked at the Weber Shandwick PR firm.

Luke Akehurst joined the Labour Party at the age of 16.

In the 2001 general election Akehurst ran as the Labour candidate in Aldershot, coming third place behind incumbent Conservative MP Gerald Howarth and the Liberal Democrat Adrian Collett.

In the 2002 Hackney borough council election, Luke Akehurst was successfully elected to the council.

In the 2005 general election he ran again as a Labour candidate, this time in Castle Point.

In the run up to the election, Akehurst criticised an anti-immigration ad that siting Tory MP Bob Spink had published as "appalling comments that whip up racial tension" and "reminiscent of the worse utterances of Enoch Powell."

He came second to Spink.

He was reelected to the council in 2006 and again in 2010, until he stood down for the 2014 Hackney Council election.

In 2006, Akehurst became Secretary of Labour First, which represents "moderates" and "the old Labour Right".

Under his leadership, the organisation has been committed to "Clause One socialism" of prioritising getting Labour candidates elected to parliament above policy, as well as advocating for a party "safe from the organised hard left".

Since August 2011, Akehurst has been employed as director of the pro-Israel group We Believe in Israel.

Though not Jewish himself, Akehurst has spoken positively of Zionism, describing it in 2023 as "a beautiful ideology of anti-racism".

Following his selection as North Durham MP in 2024, he has said he is "handing in his notice" and will no longer be a member of the group.

He has described Israel's actions in the 2023–2024 Gaza war as proportionate, an unpopular view within Labour.

Momentum, said Akehurst's views on Israel's actions were "a slap in the face to voters across the country already outraged by Labour’s failings on Gaza”.

During the 2015 Labour leadership election, Labour First urged Progress to join in supporting "ABC" (Anyone But Corbyn).

Luke Akehurst supported Yvette Cooper's campaign.

Akehurst spoke out against Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the party numerous times.

In 2018 he attempted to run for a position the NEC within the Constituency Labour Party (CLP) section, under the Corbyn-sceptic joint slate of candidates between Labour First and Progress.

Akehurst achieved 49 CLP nominations, but the slate failed to achieve any candidates, all being beaten by the pro-Corbyn Momentum–CLPD–CLGA slate.

In a 2019 speech at a Jewish Labour Movement rally, Akehurst said he had nearly left the party over anti-Semitism and hoped that Corbyn could be removed as leader.

On social media he described the United Nations as antisemitic and said that Jews were "politically black".

He has been criticised "for his efforts to wrest control of Labour’s national executive committee, conference agenda and constituency Labour parties from the Corbynite left".

He has been described as subsequent Labour leader Keir Starmer's "leading cheerleader on the NEC" by Ronan Burtenshaw, editor of Tribune.

Akehurst said of Starmer's attitude: "voters like it when Labour leaders put the hard left back in their box".

As secretary of Labour First, he was involved in 2020 talks with Progress that established the pro-Starmer umbrella group Labour to Win.

Since the organisation's launch, Akehurst has been one of its two co-directors.

In 2020, he was reelected in the first round to the Labour Party's NEC under the Labour to Win slate of nominees.

Though his own Oxford East CLP refused to nominate him, he received more votes than any other candidate.

In 2022 he was reelected again and once more topped the polls.

In the 2021 Oxford City Council elections, Akehurst ran for the St. Mary's ward, and came in third.

In May 2024, it was announced that Luke Akehurst is to stand in the 2024 general election as the Labour Party candidate for North Durham.