Owen Smith

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Owen Smith (2016)

Owen Smith (born May 2, 1970 in Morecambe , England ) is a British Labor Party politician .

biography

Owen Smith was born in Morecambe, Lancashire, North West England. His father Dai Smith was a Welsh professor of history. Owen Smith grew up in Wales and attended the Boys Comprehensive School in Barry . He later studied history and French at the University of Sussex . He initially worked as a journalist for the BBC for Wales and later as a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical company Pfizer from 2005 to 2008 and the pharmaceutical company Amgen from 2008 to 2010 .

Smith joined the Labor Party at the age of 16. He described the great miners' strike in 1984 against the policies of the Thatcher government as a key political event in his youth . In the by-election in the Welsh lower house constituency Blaenau Gwent on April 25, 2006, he received as a Labor candidate 37.0% of the vote and was thus subject to his non-party rival Dai Davies, who won 46.2%. In the following general election in 2010 he was elected to the lower house in the Welsh constituency of Pontypridd with 38.7% of the vote. In the Labor shadow cabinet under Ed Miliband , he was Shadow Minister for Wales (2010-11), Shadow Secretary of State in the Treasury (2011-12) and Shadow Minister for Wales (2012-2015). In the general election of 2015 he was re-elected with 41.1% and a wide margin to all of his opponents in Blaenau Gwent. In the post-election Labor shadow cabinet of Jeremy Corbyn , he became shadow minister for labor and pensions.

Application for the Labor party leadership

After the EU referendum on June 23, 2016 , in which a narrow majority voted for “Brexit”, ie the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union , Labor got into a crisis. Election analyzes showed that a significant number of Labor supporters had voted in favor of leaving the EU, contrary to the officially represented party line. Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn , who was elected last year , came under fire for allegedly not campaigning for EU membership with enough commitment. This also included criticism of his leadership qualities and his political convictions, which belong to the left spectrum in Labor. Gradually, most of the members of the Labor shadow cabinet resigned, including Smith on June 27, 2016. On July 13, 2016, he announced that he was running for party leadership against Jeremy Corbyn. Labor leader Angela Eagle announced her support for Smith's candidacy on July 19, 2016 after it became apparent that she did not have enough support in the Labor parliamentary group.

The electoral rules for the Labor party chairmanship stipulate that the party chairman is elected by the party members in a primary election . Only people who were party members before January 12, 2016 were entitled to vote in this election. Registered supporters who paid 25 pounds sterling and committed themselves in writing to the political goals of the Labor Party were also eligible to vote for this specific election . There was only a narrow window of opportunity to register as such a supporter from July 18 to July 20, 2016. Members of Labor-related organizations such as certain unions could similarly register as supporters for less than £ 25 but had been a member of the relevant association before January 12, 2016. The primary election ran from August 22 to September 21, 2016 and on September 24, the winner was announced at a special conference in Liverpool . Jeremy Corbyn received 313,209 votes (61.8%) and Owen Smith received 193,229 (38.2%).

Private

Owen Smith is married and has two sons and a daughter with his wife Liz. He is a supporter of the local Pontypridd RFC .

Political positions

Smith described himself as the party left. He is in many ways in agreement with the positions of Jeremy Corbyn . Judging by his voting behavior, however, he is more of a man in the Labor Party center than Corbyn. In 2015 he voted against operations by the Royal Air Force in Syria and, in view of the tight budget situation, spoke out in favor of limited cuts in the social budget. Smith voted (as opposed to Corbyn) to continue maintaining the UK's nuclear armament. In support of the underfunded National Health Service , he advocated a rich tax on the richest 1%. He aims to give Wales the same financial autonomy as Scotland in a further devolution , but wants to make this dependent on a positive referendum on it.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Cristina Criddle: Who is Owen Smith? Daily Telegraph, July 13, 2016, accessed July 19, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Revealed: Ed Miliband's Pfizer insider in the shadow Cabinet. The Telegraph, May 10, 2014, accessed July 22, 2016 .
  3. ^ A b c Brian Wheeler: The Owen Smith story. BBC News, July 19, 2016, accessed July 20, 2016 .
  4. ↑ GWENT, Blaenau Gwent [558]. election.demon.co.uk, accessed July 19, 2016 .
  5. ^ Owen Smith MP. Democracy Live (BBC), accessed July 20, 2016 .
  6. ↑ a b Owen Smith MP. www.parliament.uk, accessed on July 20, 2016 (English).
  7. ^ Labor crisis: Griffith and Smith quit shadow cabinet. BBC News, June 27, 2016, accessed July 20, 2016 .
  8. ^ Labor leadership: Owen Smith to enter contest. BBC News, July 13, 2016, accessed July 20, 2016 .
  9. ↑ Angela Eagle drops out of the Labor leader race. BBC News, July 19, 2016, accessed July 20, 2016 .
  10. ^ Labor leadership election: Jeremy Corbyn v Owen Smith. BBC News, July 19, 2016, accessed July 20, 2016 .
  11. ^ Labor Leadership Election 2016. Labor Party, September 24, 2016, archived from the original on July 19, 2016 ; accessed on September 24, 2016 (English).
  12. ^ Owen Smith proposes wealth tax to boost NHS spending. BBC News, July 27, 2016, accessed July 27, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Owen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician (Labor)
DATE OF BIRTH May 2nd 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Morecambe , England