John Francis Spellar was first elected as the Labour MP for Warley in 1992, being reelected in 2019 with a majority of 11,511. He briefly served as the MP for Birmingham Northfield between a by-election in 1982 and the 1983 General Election.
The constituency of Warley is found within the West Midlands Borough of Sandwell, to the west of Birmingham itself. It includes the industrial town of Smethwick and the communities of Brandhall and Langley Green. This is relatively deprived area where unemployment regularly exceeds the national average. With the exception of the period between 1964 and 1966 when the Conservatives bucked the national trend on the back of a controversial local campaign, this seat has been a Labour stronghold ever since the Second World War. A quarter of the electorate are said to be of Asian descent. Some three fifths backed Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum.
In the Blair Government between 1999 and 2005, Spellar was variously the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, Minister of State for Transport and Minister of State for Northern Ireland. Spellar left the front bench in 2005, but in 2008 rejoined the government under Gordon Brown in the Whips Office. He was Comptroller of the Household, between 2008 and 2010.
John Spellar was born in 1947 in Bromley. He attended Dulwich College school, attended by Nigel Farage some 17 years later, before studying at St Edmund Hall, Oxford.
Prior to being elected to Parliament, Spellar was a long standing trade union official, serving as the political officer for the then Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union.
Spellar is one of just a few MPs who have never publicly stated how he voted in the 2016 EU referendum.
Spellar is considered to be on the right of the Labour Party.
In his union days, Spellar was hostile to the rise of the Bennite left in Labour in the early 1980s. Spellar was critical of Jeremy Corbyn telling the BBC in 2016, “How does Jeremy Corbyn and his tiny band of Trots in the bunker think they’ve got the unique view on it all?”.
Spellar was a councillor on Bromley Council between 1970 and 1974.
John Spellar is Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Transatlantic Trade; Australia and New Zealand; Singapore; Turks and Caicos Islands; and Jazz Appreciation.
He is Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Bahrain; Brazil; the British Overseas Territories; Canada; the Cayman Islands; Finland; Germany; Indonesia; Israel; Japan; Oman; Saudi Arabia; Thailand; Tunisia; the United Arab Emirates; Venezuela; Yemen; Alternative Dispute Resolution; Baseball and Softball; Betting and Gaming; British Sikhs; Darts; Commonwealth Games; Motorsport; and Space.
Email: john.spellar.mp@parliament.uk
Personal Website: http://www.johnspellar.labour.co.uk/
Twitter: @spellar
Facebook Personal: https://www.facebook.com/johnspellar
