Anna McMorrin is the Labour MP for Cardiff North, having first been elected to parliament at the 2017 general election.

In the 2024 general election, McMorrin won 20,849 votes, representing 43.9% of the vote. The Conservative candidate, Joel Williams, received 9,642 votes (20.3%), while the Reform candidate secured 5,985 votes (12.6%). McMorrin was duly elected with a majority of 11,207 votes.

The Cardiff North constituency covers northern parts of the Welsh capital. Historically a marginal seat, it has been held by Labour since 2017 and saw a record Labour majority in 2024.

Political Career

McMorrin was appointed to the post of parliamentary under-secretary of state in the Wales Office in the September 2025 ministerial reshuffle. She served as an assistant government whip from July 2024 to September 2025.

Prior to the 2024 general election, which saw Labour returned to power after 14 years in opposition, McMorrin served as shadow minister for Latin America and the Caribbean (September 2023 – July 2024), shadow minister for victims and youth justice (May 2021 – September 2023), and shadow minister for international development (April 2020 – May 2021).

McMorrin resigned as parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to the shadow international trade secretary, Barry Gardiner, in June 2018 to vote against the Labour whip on a motion regarding the UK’s membership of the European economic area (EEA). The Labour leadership had urged MPs to abstain. A PPS acts as an unpaid parliamentary assistant, providing a link between the senior frontbencher and backbench MPs. McMorrin was one of five parliamentary private secretaries – also Ged Killen, Ellie Reeves, Rosie Duffield and Tonia Antoniazzi – to step down.

Explaining her decision to resign, McMorrin told ITV News: “I really didn’t do this to somehow diminish Jeremy’s leadership… it was a very specific instance on this occasion but one that I feel is so important that I had to vote this way.”

McMorrin was a member of the House of Commons environmental audit committee (2022-2024 and 2017-2019), the business and trade committee (2020-2020), and the Welsh affairs committee (2017-2019)

McMorrin delivered her maiden speech on 26 June 2017 during a debate on Brexit and foreign affairs.

In it, she said: “The history of the modern Cardiff North is a history of how industry and people changed and revolutionised the city and the whole of south Wales. But it is industry that has defined the modern part of the capital that I represent.

“It was the wealth created by the traditional industries of south Wales that created the gothic splendour of Castell Coch, and it was this same industry that brought people to create Cardiff and that led to the growth of Whitchurch, Rhiwbina, Llanishen, Pontprennau, Heath and Llandaff North, to name only a few of its communities.”

She added: “I intend to use my time to stand up against failed austerity measures and for a more prosperous, fairer and more equal society.”

Political views

Leadership elections and loyalty

Labour deputy leadership 2025: McMorrin was one of 175 Labour MPs who nominated Bridget Phillipson for the party’s deputy leadership in September 2025. The election followed the resignation of Angela Rayner, who stepped down as deputy prime minister and deputy party leader after an investigation into her tax affairs. It marked the first time since 2007 that Labour had held a deputy leadership contest while in government.

Phillipson, the serving education secretary, was widely viewed as the candidate favoured by Downing Street and the party leadership. She secured 175 nominations from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), comfortably exceeding the 80 required to reach the final ballot. She was ultimately defeated by Lucy Powell.

Labour leadership 2020: McMorrin was one of 82 Labour MPs who nominated Keir Starmer for the party’s leadership in early 2020. The election was triggered by the resignation of Jeremy Corbyn following the party’s defeat in the 2019 general election, which resulted in Labour’s fewest seats in the House of Commons since 1935.

Starmer’s 82 nominations were the highest of any candidate. The shadow Brexit secretary won a decisive victory in the first round with 56.2% of the vote, defeating Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy.

Factional identity and party tradition

Tribune group (2017): McMorrin was listed among the supporters of the Tribune parliamentary group – a caucus generally described as representing the party’s “soft left”.

The Tribune group was initially formed in 1964 to support the newspaper of the same name. It served as a prominent forum for those parliamentarians situated on the left of the Labour Party – but it split over Tony Benn’s campaign for the deputy leadership in 1981. Benn’s supporters founded the Campaign group – which evolved into the Socialist Campaign Group (SCG). Today, the Bennite SCG is strongly associated with the Labour left tradition.

During the 1980s, the Tribune group emerged as a more natural home for those on Labour’s “soft left”.

In 2017, Efford officially re-launched the group with a new mission statement calling for “opportunity and aspiration” to be placed at the heart of the party’s programme. Efford said he had reformed the group to ensure that the centre-left of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) “have a space in which to put forward ideas and debate which has not been there under successive leaders”.

He added: “The view of Labour MPs at the moment tends to be that too much are just Blairites who want to stab Jeremy Corbyn in the back. We want to show that is not where we are, and that we want to develop our own ideas that represent the centre-left of the party.”

Brexit and Europe

Brexit referendum: McMorrin supported Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum, and therefore agreed with a majority of her constituents, 60.9% of whom also voted to Remain.

People’s vote support (2019): McMorrin signed a January 2019 statement by Labour MPs calling for a “people’s vote” or second referendum. The statement, signed by 71 Labour MPs, read: “Defeat of the Tory [Brexit] deal in a public vote would give us all a chance to campaign for the anti-austerity policies and a Labour government that deals with the true causes of the Brexit vote, and a reformed Europe that works for all people.”

Left-wing ‘people’s vote’: In March 2019, McMorrin was among 20 signatories to a cross-party letter published in the Guardian that called for a second referendum and rubbished Brexit as a “massive assault” on working-class people.

The letter read:“We are campaigning to transform society, not for the status quo. We are against Brexit because it is a massive assault on working-class people, on the environment, on migrants and on the communities that the left aims to represent.”

Remain pledge: During the 2019 general election campaign, McMorrin was one of 193 Labour candidates to sign the anti-Brexit “Remain pledge”, drawn up by the campaign group Remain Labour.

It stated: “Labour is committed to a confirmatory referendum, to give you the final say on Brexit. If elected as your Labour MP, I pledge to campaign to Remain in the EU.”

Welfare

Welfare vote (July 2025): McMorrin voted in favour of the government’s flagship welfare bill at second reading. The vote came after ministers agreed to significant concessions to avoid defeat via a mass rebellion of Labour MPs on 1 July 2025.

Assisted dying

McMorrin voted in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, better known as the assisted dying bill, at both second reading (November 2024) and third reading (June 2025).

Social values and conscience issues

Abortion decriminalisation (2025): McMorrin voted in favour of a backbench amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that sought to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales in June 2025. The amendment, which was passed by a majority of 242 votes, removed women from the threat of prosecution for ending a pregnancy at any stage. As an issue of conscience, MPs were allowed to vote according to their personal beliefs.

Before Politics

Born Anna Rhiannon McMorrin in Brecon, Wales on 23 September 1971, she grew up near Glasbury. Her father, Ian McMorrin, worked for the British Antarctic Survey.

McMorrin studied French and politics (BA) at the university of Southampton, graduating in 1994. She later gained a postgraduate diploma in journalism from Cardiff university in 1997.

She joined the Labour party as a student.

After graduating, she worked in public relations and communications, including roles at the Labour party (part-time, 1996-97) and the consultancy Hill & Knowlton.

She was campaigns and communications director for Friends of the Earth Cymru (2006-2008).

Before entering parliament, McMorrin worked as a special adviser in the Welsh government and stood unsuccessfully for the Labour nomination for the Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney Senedd seat in 2016.

She later became director of Llais Ltd and joined Invicta Public Affairs in 2016.

Personal Life

McMorrin has two daughters with her ex-husband.

She is a member of the Unison and GMB trade unions.  

Trivia

McMorrin speaks French and Spanish and is learning Welsh.