Rushanara Ali

Early life

Ali was born in Bishwanath, Sylhet, Bangladesh. With her family, Ali emigrated to the East End of London at the age of seven, where she attended Mulberry School for Girls and Tower Hamlets College. She grew up in Tower Hamlets where her father was a manual labourer. The first in her family to go to university, Ali studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at St John's College, Oxford.

Career

Ali began her career as a research assistant to Michael Young, working on a project which paved the way for the establishment of Tower Hamlets Summer University, offering independent learning programmes for young people aged 11–25. She also helped to develop "Language Line", a national telephone interpreting service in over 100 languages. Between 1997–1999 she was also parliamentary assistant to Oona King, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow at the time.

Ali worked on human rights issues at the Foreign Office from 2000–2001. Prior to this, she was a research fellow at the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) focussing on anti-discrimination issues from 1999–2002. From 2002–2005, she worked in the community cohesion unit at the Communities Directorate of the Home Office, leading a work programme to mobilise local and national agencies in the aftermath of the 2001 riots in Burnley, Bradford and Oldham, to prevent further conflict and unrest, challenging central Government to provide appropriate support to these areas.

Since 2005, Ali has worked as Associate Director of the Young Foundation in Bethnal Green, a thinktank focussed on social innovation. She also serves as Chair of Tower Hamlets Summer University; a commissioner on the London Child Poverty Commission; board member of Tower Hamlets College; Trustee of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation; and member of the Tate Britain Council.

Ali has published articles on a variety of political issues in numerous national and local media including The Guardian, Prospect magazine and Progress magazine. Ali has also appeared on Question Time Extra, BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour and Thinking Allowed.

In March 2009, Ali was listed by The Guardian as one of the most powerful Muslim women in Britain.

Parliamentary career

In April 2007, Ali was chosen as the Labour Party's prospective Parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow, and in May 2010, was elected as a Member of Parliament with a majority of 11,574 votes. She is the first person of Bangladeshi origin to have been elected to the House of Commons, and along with Shabana Mahmood and Yasmin Qureshi, became one of the United Kingdom's first female Muslim MPs.

In April 2013, Ali was appointed a Governor of the UK government funded Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

In October 2013, Ali was appointed Shadow Minister for Education. On 26 September 2014, she resigned from the Labour frontbench Education team to abstain on the Coalition government's House of Commons motion permitting military action against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Iraq. In a letter to the leader of the party Ed Miliband, she wrote "I appreciate the sincerity of members of parliament from all sides of the House who today support military action against ISIL. I know that British Muslims stand united in the total condemnation of the murders that ISIL have committed. However, there is a genuine belief in Muslim and non-Muslim communities that military action will only create further bloodshed and further pain for the people of Iraq," Ali also told Miliband that she remained totally committed to his leadership and was looking forward to his becoming the prime minister in next eight months' time. In his return letter to Ali, Miliband praised her as 'someone with great ability and talent'. Regretting her departure from the frontbench team, the Labour leader added that he accepted the resignation with due respect to her decision.

In May 2015, in the general election, Ali retained her seat with an increased majority of 24,317. In June 2015, she was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election.

In June 2015, Ali was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election. (This is duplicated only difference is May or June)

In April 2016, British Prime Minister David Cameron appointed Ali as UK trade envoy for Bangladesh, as part of cross party trade envoy network.

In June 2017, in the general election, Ali retained her seat with an increased majority of 35,393.