Stella Creasy

Early life and career

Creasy was born in Sutton Coldfield, and is the daughter of Corinna Frances Avril (née Martin) and Philip Charles Creasy, both active Labour Party members; her father is a trained opera singer and her mother a headteacher of a special needs school. Her elder brother, Matthew Henry Creasy (born 1974), is an academic.

After spending her early childhood in Manchester, her family moved to Colchester where Creasy attended Colchester County High School for Girls, a grammar school. Although she initially failed the eleven-plus exam, the Creasy family's move south gave her a second chance. Creasy attended Magdalene College, Cambridge where she read Social and Political Sciences before pursuing postgraduate studies at London School of Economics. Creasy received the Richard Titmuss Award in 2005 for her thesis. In the 1990s, towards the end of John Major's period as prime minister, Creasy was an intern at the Fabian Society.

In 2006, having already started work as a parliamentary researcher, she completed her thesis entitled Understanding the lifeworld of social exclusion, receiving a doctorate in Social Psychology from the London School of Economics.

Early career

Creasy worked as a lobbyist and PR consultant, becoming head of Public Affairs at the Scout Association.

A former deputy director of a think tank, Involve, she worked as a researcher and speech writer for various Labour government ministers, including Douglas Alexander, Charles Clarke and Ross Cranston.

Elected as a councillor in Waltham Forest, Creasy later became the borough's deputy mayor before serving as mayor for four months prior to her election to the House of Commons.

Creasy was a member of the Young Fabians and served on its executive.

In Parliament

In 2010 Creasy was selected from an all-female shortlist as the Labour Party candidate for Walthamstow, being elected to Parliament at the 2010 general election, retaining the seat for her party as successor to the previous Labour MP, Neil Gerrard, who had retired from the Commons.

Payday loans

Creasy has campaigned for better regulation of payday loans companies. In an article published by The Guardian, she stated that just six companies controlled lending to 90% of the seven million Britons without a bank account or credit card. Her disclosure that the average cost of credit charged to these customers was 272% APR, as in the rest of Europe, and that there was a fourfold increase in payday loans since the start of the recession in 2008 led to cross-party parliamentary support for a cap. Creasy also highlighted in a speech to the House of Commons the lack of competition in the market, leading to Government support for a cap of loans which exploit the poor, which in some cases reached 4000%. APR. Creasy won The Spectator magazine's Campaigner of the Year prize in their Parliamentarian of the Year awards in 2011 for her work on the issue.

In 2012, a Wonga employee used company equipment to make offensive personal attacks against Creasy. Wonga made an "immediate and unreserved apology" following these malicious attacks, and Creasy also managed to get the firm to promote one of her constituency events in aid of struggling families.

Twitter threats in 2013

At the end of July 2013 on her Twitter timeline, along with the feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez (who had lobbied the Bank of England to put a woman on the £10 note), Creasy received numerous rape threats and other misogynistic messages.

Creasy wrote in an article published on 27 July: "Twitter tell me we should simply block those who 'offend us', as though a rape threat is matter of bad manners, not criminal behaviour." She also appeared on Newsnight on 30 July 2013 with Toby Young, the Conservative commentator, over the validity of addressing harassment on the social networking site. She criticised him for a previous tweet about an MP's breasts. Young has objected to Twitter's subsequent change in policy, writing that the company, "shouldn't change its abuse policy in response to being brow-beaten by a politician". On 2 September 2014 at the City of London Magistrates' Court, Peter Nunn was found guilty of sending menacing messages to Creasy, and was subsequently jailed for eighteen weeks.

Creasy supported the No More Page 3 campaign to stop The Sun newspaper from including pictures of topless glamour models.

Labour Party deputy leadership

Creasy was re-elected in 2015 with a substantially increased majority, securing a 17% increase in the share of the vote.

Following the 2015 general election defeat, Creasy announced her intention to stand as a candidate in the Labour Party deputy leadership election. Gaining the minimum 35 required nominees to be included on the ballot by noon on 17 June, Creasy did not back any of the four candidates in the leadership election. She was prepared to work as deputy to any of the candidates for leader, including Jeremy Corbyn. "Of course I would", she told Carol Midgley in a Times interview in August 2015, "because that process of rebuilding isn’t about any one person it's about all of us. It's written on the back of our membership card that we achieve more together than we do alone."

Creasy gained 26% of the vote and came second, with Tom Watson being elected.

Momentum, Syria and Corbyn

An accusation was made in late 2015 that members of the Momentum group were aiming to replace Creasy with someone closer to the Labour Left. A possibility that the seat might be redrawn after boundary changes means potential candidates are jockeying for position in the constituency party. Momentum have denied this claim. Creasy has criticised Momentum.

Creasy allegedly received threats via social media following her vote for extending UK military action against ISIS to Syria after the parliamentary debate on 2 December 2015. Creasy was undecided until the day of the vote, while staff in her Walthamstow constituency office had to deal with harassing telephone calls. Protesters had gathered outside the office the previous night urging a 'no' vote. On Facebook, Creasy defended their right to peaceful protest. Reports that protesters had gathered outside her home proved to be unfounded.

Creasy is a critic of the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and has stated she has no confidence in him. Additionally, Creasy criticised Corbyn for his call to decriminalise the sex industry.

Abortion law in Northern Ireland

A potential amendment to the Queen's Speech, organised by Creasy, gained cross-party support and was ultimately signed by 100 MPs threatening a government defeat. In answer to a question from Creasy in the Commons on 29 June 2017, Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said the government would support free abortions on the mainland for Northern Irish women. It is almost impossible for women to gain a legal termination in Northern Ireland, even in cases where a pregnancy has been the result of rape or incest.

Earlier in June, a Supreme Court ruling upheld the legal basis for a charge of £900 for women from the province seeking an abortion on the mainland, whereas other necessary treatments on the NHS would have been free. Creasy was cautious in her response to the development. "The devil will be in the detail", she said.