Richard Burgon

Richard Burgon (born 19 September 1980) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds East since 2015.

Burgon has said that growing up hearing about the 1984–85 Miners' Strike initiated his interest in politics.

His aunt was a member of Women Against Pit Closures and was married to a striking miner.

He is the nephew of the former Labour MP Colin Burgon.

Tony Benn described meeting Burgon in July 1999 in his diary, describing him as "a good socialist, [who] had written a thesis on 'Tony Benn's influence on the Labour Party'."

Benn also noted that Burgon wore a "specially made" T-shirt which said "Socialism is the Flame of Anger and the Flame of Hope".

Burgon attended the 15 February 2003 anti-war protests against George W. Bush and Tony Blair's planned invasion of Iraq.

In 2004, Burgon first contested a public election as one of the Labour Party candidates for the Wetherby ward of Leeds City Council.

On previous boundaries, the ward's majorities suggested a safe seat for the Conservative Party, and Burgon was unsuccessful in being elected.

Burgon qualified as a solicitor in 2006, specialising in employment law for 10 years in the Employment Rights Unit at Thompsons Solicitors in Leeds.

Burgon has described how, as a solicitor, he "represented members from a wide range of trade unions in Employment Tribunal cases relating to, for example, unfair dismissal, detriment on trade union grounds, disability discrimination, sex discrimination, discrimination on grounds of religion or belief, unlawful deduction of wages and TUPE."

Burgon stood for selection as the Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for the 2011 Barnsley Central by-election, coming second to Dan Jarvis after tying in the penultimate round of voting.

Two pieces of paper were put in a hat, and Jarvis won the nomination.

He also applied to be selected as the candidate for the 2012 Rotherham by-election, but was not shortlisted.

After working as an employment lawyer, he was elected as the MP for Leeds East at the 2015 general election.

Burgon was appointed as Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury (City Minister) in September 2015 by new Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Prior to the 2015 general election, Burgon defeated local councillor Judith Cummins to be successfully selected by the Leeds East Constituency Labour Party to replace George Mudie.

Burgon was elected as MP for Leeds East at the 2015 general election, increasing the Labour Party's majority in the seat from 10,293 to 12,533 votes.

He was described by The Observer as one of "the stars of the [2015] intake".

Standing on the floor of the House of Commons in May 2015, he prefaced his mandatory oath of allegiance to Elizabeth II by expressing his support for constitutional change for an elected head of state: "As someone that believes that the head of state should be elected I make this oath in order to serve my constituents".

Following the resignation of Ed Miliband as Labour leader, Burgon was one of 10 newly elected Labour MPs who wrote an open letter calling for "a new leader who looks forward and will challenge an agenda of cuts, take on big business and will set out an alternative to austerity – not one which will draw back to the New Labour creed of the past".

Along with Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and John McDonnell, Burgon was one of 48 Labour MPs to defy the whip and vote against the 2015 Welfare Bill, explaining that he was voting "for the people of East Leeds and against Conservative attacks on welfare."

He was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election of 2015.

Following Corbyn's victory in that campaign he appointed Burgon as Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury.

In an October 2015 Channel 4 News interview, Burgon admitted that, despite having been Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury for over a month, he was still yet to meet anyone from the city of London's finance and banking industry, nor could he predict the UK budget deficit for 2015.

Burgon is secretary of the GMB Parliamentary Group.

In this role, he ensures that issues of interest to GMB members are raised in the House of Commons.

Burgon is also a member of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers' Union.

Burgon served as Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor in the Shadow Cabinet of Jeremy Corbyn from 2016 to 2020.

Burgon read English Literature at St John's College, Cambridge, where he was chairman of the Cambridge University Labour Club.

Burgon was promoted to Shadow Justice Secretary in June 2016 following the organised mass resignations in protest against the leadership of Corbyn.

He nominated Corbyn again as leader during the 2016 Labour leadership election.

He was a candidate in the 2020 Labour Party deputy leadership election.

He was dismissed from the Shadow Cabinet in April 2020 after Keir Starmer became Labour Leader.

As of March 2021, he was Vice President of Labour CND, a group open to all Labour Party members who are also members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Burgon was brought up in Leeds and has distant Irish ancestry.

He was educated at Cardinal Heenan Roman Catholic High School in Leeds.

He moved to St Aidan's and St John Fisher Associated Sixth Form in Harrogate to complete his A Levels.

He was the first person in his immediate family to go to university, studying English Literature at St John's College, Cambridge.

He was chair of Cambridge University Labour Club.