Naz Shah

Early life and career

Born in Bradford, Shah was abandoned by her father when six years old after he ran off with their neighbour's sixteen-year-old daughter. At age 12, she was sent to Pakistan by her mother, Zoora Shah.

Zoora Shah fatally poisoned a man she was having an affair with. She served 14 years in prison for four charges including murder, attempted murder, solicitation to murder and forgery. While in Pakistan, Naz Shah had an arranged marriage.

Before being elected as an MP, Shah was the chair of mental health charity, Sharing Voices Bradford, and had previously worked as a carer for disabled people, as an NHS Commissioner and a director for a regional association supporting local councils. She has said that she voted for George Galloway at the Bradford West by-election in 2012.

Political career

Shah won the Bradford West constituency with a majority of 11,420 over George Galloway in May 2015. She was chosen to stand for the Labour party in March 2015 after the original candidate had stood down. On 10 May 2015, Galloway announced an intention to challenge the result, alleging that false statements and malpractice related to postal votes during the campaign meant that the result of the election should be set aside, but did not launch a legal challenge. In July 2015 Jeremy Corbyn, commenting on how Galloway had acted during the election, said "I thought the tactics he used against our candidate, were appalling. I was quite shocked; it was appalling."

Naz Shah was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary to John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, in February 2016.

Suspension from the Labour Party

Amidst an ongoing controversy in the Labour Party about antisemitism, Shah was discovered by blogger Paul Staines in April 2016 to have reposted a Facebook meme in August 2014 supporting the relocation of Israel to the USA. Shah also commented on the post, suggesting the plan might "save them some pocket money". In July 2014, she wrote on Facebook about a newspaper poll concerning alleged Israeli war crimes in the Gaza conflict that "The Jews are rallying to the poll" and in September appeared to compare Israeli policies to those of Adolf Hitler.

Shah asserted that her views on Israel had moderated in the 20 months since the post and on 26 April 2016 she resigned from her unpaid post as John McDonnell's PPS while still holding her seat on the Home Affairs Select Committee investigating the rise of antisemitism in the UK. She was suspended by the Labour Party on 27 April 2016, forfeiting all roles. However, on 5 July 2016 her suspension was overturned and she was reinstated. Her views were described as normal politics in Bradford in an Independent article in which the writer described being punched in the head and called a "fucking Jew".

"Shah's apologies appeared to be heartfelt. She seemed genuinely contrite", wrote John Rentoul in The Independent. "If she has seen the error of her ways, then the best way to try to persuade others that anti-Semitism is wrong might be to enlist her to the cause, not cast her to the outer darkness." Henry Zeffman of the London Evening Standard similarly wrote that Shah had in her apology "showed a genuine engagement with the anti-Semitism that has found a happy home on parts of the left, and a desire to stamp it out."

In an interview with Vanessa Feltz, former London mayor Ken Livingstone said that while Shah's comments were "over the top", they were not antisemitic. He was also suspended from Labour for "bringing the party into disrepute" as a result of remarks made during that interview, that "when Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism – this before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews".

Rotherham sexual abuse comments controversy

In August 2017, Shah shared and liked a post tweeted from a parody account of newspaper columnist Owen Jones. The post read "Those abused girls in Rotherham and elsewhere just need to shut their mouths. For the good of diversity". Shah later deleted the share and unliked the post, describing her tweet as a "genuine accident" and apologised for any offence caused. Shah told the Rotherham Advertiser that she had been working for "over 20 years on the issues of child abuse, violence against women and grooming."

She was criticised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission chief executive Rebecca Hilsenrath, who said the MP 'should know better’, and the controversy led to a campaign to have Shah resign or be removed from her job. A survivor of the Rotherham abuse called for Shah to make a public apology and resign.

2017 general election

At the general election in June 2017, Shah was re-elected with an increased vote share and an increased majority of 29,444 votes (48.1%) over the second-placed Conservative Party candidate.