Clive Lewis



Clive Anthony Lewis (born 11 September 1971) has been the member of parliament (MP) for Norwich South since winning the seat at the 2015 general election.

He studied at the University of Bradford before being elected to various student union roles and then serving as vice-president of the National Union of Students.

Lewis often broke the party line on issues including nuclear weapons, tuition fees and immigration. Describing himself as a "proud socialist", he was also appointed as the Chair of the Humanist APPG. During the 2015 Labour leadership election, he was one of 36 MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn, and has remained a strong supporter.

Appointed to Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Defence in June 2016, Lewis was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in the October 2016 reshuffle. He left the Shadow Cabinet on 8 February 2017 in protest over the Labour Party's decision to whip its MPs into voting to trigger Article 50.

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.

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. In keeping with these views, Lewis is a member of the Compass Management Committee. The left wing pressure group was established because it was felt that 'New Labour was failing to make the most of a historic opportunity to fundamentally transform the UK into a much more equal, democratic and sustainable society'.

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.

As a candidate, Lewis often broke from the party line on issues such as nuclear weapons, tuition fees and immigration.

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 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.

On 8 February 2017, Lewis left the Shadow Cabinet. On 12 January 2018, Lewis was reappointed to Labour's Shadow Cabinet as a shadow Treasury minister