Clive Lewis (politician)

Early life and education

Born in London, Lewis grew up on a council estate in Northampton, the son of a single father. He was the first member of his family to attend university, reading economics at the University of Bradford before being elected student union president, and eventually 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, saying "Any loans system will be unfair".

Lewis was suspended as vice-president in 1996 by then-president Jim Murphy for attending a debate on free education organised by the Campaign for Free Education (CFE). Murphy's actions were condemned in an early day motion authored by Ken Livingstone which received the backing of 13 MPs. Running on a campaign of a return to full grants and free education, Lewis ran as the CFE candidate for president of the National Union of Students in 1996. He lost the election to Douglas Trainer, the Labour Students candidate by 586 to 458 votes.

Professional career

Lewis' first job was at the BBC, as a security guard at BBC World News in London. After completing a post-graduate diploma in journalism, he worked on local newspapers in Northampton and Milton Keynes before being accepted into the BBC's News Trainee Scheme. He went on to work as a broadcast journalist in Nottingham, Norwich, and Coventry. He then became a senior broadcast journalist and the main reporter on the BBC's Politics Show East. He is an associate governor of Thorpe St Andrew School and was one of the previous Labour Government's National Black Role Models, working with young people across Britain.

Lewis joined the Territorial Army, passing out of Sandhurst Military Academy in 2006 as an infantry officer with 7th Rifles. In 2009, he served a three-month tour of duty in Afghanistan. Shortly after returning from his tour of duty, he faced depression, saying "I just felt like I was being crushed by it all." However, he recovered after receiving counselling from the Ministry of Defence.

Parliamentary career

Lewis was selected as the Labour Party's prospective parliamentary candidate for Norwich South at the party's hustings in November 2011, defeating challengers including Blur drummer Dave Rowntree. Norwich South had been won by Liberal Democrat Simon Wright in the 2010 general election by a margin of just over 300 votes, defeating former Home Secretary and Education Secretary Charles Clarke.

In April 2015, Lewis commented in an interview for the New Statesman (in jest), in response to a question on whether he was taking his upcoming victory for granted, he would only lose if he was "caught with [his] pants down behind a goat with Ed Miliband at the other end". He subsequently apologised for the remark, saying he was "sincerely sorry" if anyone had been offended by the comment.

On 7 May 2015, Lewis was elected MP for Norwich South, winning 19,033 votes, 39.3% of the total vote, giving him a 15.8% majority of 7,654. Lewis, in his victory speech, declared New Labour to be "dead and buried" and promised to stand up for Norwich's most vulnerable against an "onslaught of cuts" by the Conservative Party.

Lewis was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election of 2015. Corbyn credited Lewis with getting his nominations "off the ground". Following Corbyn's election as leader on 12 September 2015, Lewis said: "There is going to be a big realisation that the party needs to pull together, there were people in the room who weren't happy, some people are in shock, some are upset but I know that Jeremy will be magnanimous, inclusive and conciliatory." Lewis has been described as an "ally" of Corbyn, and one of his "early backers".

In April 2017, Lewis was one of 13 MPs to vote against triggering the 2017 General Election. He was re-elected with a majority of 30.4 per cent.

Views and campaigns

As a candidate, Lewis often broke from the party line on issues such as nuclear weapons, tuition fees and immigration. Locally, Lewis supported the campaign to prevent Hewett School, a comprehensive school in Norwich, from being turned into an academy. He describes himself as a "proud socialist" and is a member of three trade unions (Unite, GMB and the National Union of Journalists).

In June 2015, Lewis was elected Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group, a group which represents humanists in Parliament; he held this position until September 2017, when he became the group's Vice Chair. On how his views influence his politics, he has said that "Central to being a humanist, which I am, is the core understanding that doubt and criticism are essential attributes in the quest for knowledge." In July, he was announced as the new patron of the Anti Academies Alliance.

Lewis has criticised British involvement in Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen. He said: "It’s sickening to think of British-built weapons being used against civilians and the government has an absolute responsibility to do everything in its power to stop that from happening. But as ministers turn a blind eye to the conflict in Yemen, evidence that humanitarian law has been violated is becoming harder to ignore by the day."

Shadow Cabinet

It was suggested that Lewis could serve as either Shadow Secretary of State for Defence or as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in a Jeremy Corbyn-led shadow cabinet. It has also been suggested that Lewis could succeed Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party, although Lewis has said of the suggestion: "Personally, I think it's the political kiss of death". However, following the result of the leadership election, when asked about the possibility of his being in the shadow cabinet, Lewis said: "I don’t want to do that at this moment – I think we need the ability and experience and he [Corbyn] has to reach out, it must be from all parts of the party".

After wide speculation on the position that Lewis could hold, on 18 September 2015, Lewis was appointed to the Labour frontbench as a shadow minister in the Energy and Climate Change team.

Following a large number of resignations from Corbyn's shadow cabinet after the 2016 EU referendum, Lewis was appointed as Shadow Secretary of State for Defence. In September 2016, at the Labour party 2016 Conference when Lewis was preparing to give his first speech as Shadow Defence Secretary, a section 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 his fellow nuclear abolitionist Nia Griffith MP, Lewis being re-appointed as Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The move was viewed as a tactical demotion, though still a helpful career progression for Lewis.

On 8 February 2017, Lewis left the Shadow Cabinet, citing the Labour Party's decision to whip its MPs into voting to trigger Article 50 to start Brexit negotiations.