Graeme Downie

MP for Dunfermline and Dollar

Labour

Graeme Downie is the Labour MP for Dunfermline and Dollar, having first been elected to parliament at the 2024 general election.

In the 2024 general election, Downie won 20,336 votes, representing 45.7% of the vote. The Scottish National Party (SNP) candidate, Naz Anis-Miah, received 12,095 votes (27.2%), while the Conservative Party candidate, Thomas Heald, secured 3,297 votes (7.4%). Downie was duly elected with a majority of 8,241 votes.

The Dunfermline and Dollar constituency covers parts of Fife and Clackmannanshire in Scotland. It was newly created for the 2024 general election from parts of the former Dunfermline and West Fife, Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, and Ochil and South Perthshire constituencies.

Political Career

Downie is a member of the House of Commons energy security and net zero committee (since November 2025). The committee scrutinises the work of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

In May 2026, Downie publicly called for Keir Starmer, the prime minister, to step down/set out a timetable for his departure. The move followed the 2026 local elections and devolved elections to the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru.

In a statement, Downie said: “Britain needs stability and focus. The current uncertainty is holding the country back and undermining our ability to deliver the change that people are crying out for…

“I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that for the good of the country the prime minister should now step down and allow others to build on the foundations he has laid.”

In May 2025, Downie led the first-ever full commons debate on Parkinson’s, telling the House that it was a “little shocking that there has never been a full debate in this chamber on Parkinson’s”.He called for the introduction of the so-called Parky charter, which he described as a “manifesto for dignity”.

He stated: “Its reasonable and fair demands offer us a clear and achievable path forward: speedier diagnoses, informed and empowered patients, co-ordinated care, comprehensive support and determination that we will find a cure. These are not luxuries; they are necessities for dignity and survival.”

In June 2025, Downie was one of 22 newly elected Labour MPs who co-signed a letter to the leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, and the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) calling for improved paternity leave for parliamentary staff. The letter, organised in collaboration with the campaign group The Dad Shift, argued that the current provision of two weeks’ paid leave was “unfair” and left parliament trailing behind leading private and public sector employers.

The letter said current rules meant MPs were “unable to support our staff appropriately at some of the most important times of their lives”.

They added: “Dads in our offices get just two weeks off, a situation that is unfair and puts parliament many steps behind top employers across the country.”

In response, a government spokesperson told PoliticsHome: “We are committed to making sure parents receive the best possible support to balance their work and home lives as part of our Plan to Make Work Pay.”

Downie has sat as a member of the procedure committee (2024-2025).

Downie is listed as a member of the all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) for Parkinson’s (chair), North Macedonia (chair), aviation, travel and aerospace, defence and security sectors supporting local communities, Estonia, and space.

Downie delivered his maiden speech on 3 September 2024 during a debate on the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill.

In it, he said: “It was an early November morning in 1989 that truly shaped my politics. I was woken at 2 am by my dad, who sat me down in front of a German TV channel and proclaimed, ‘This is history.’

“I watched as tens of thousands of people scaled the Berlin wall, heralding the beginning of the end of the cold war and moves towards a united Germany. The events of 1989 taught me that oppression is not, cannot and never will be either acceptable or effective, and neither should it be tolerated.”

He added: “I want to take this opportunity to add to the sentiment across this House that the UK will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes to fight the aggression of Vladimir Putin. He might hold the honorific of ‘president’, but a dictator is a dictator, as many before have warned from these Benches.”

Prior to entering parliament, Downie was elected to serve as a Labour councillor on Fife Council. He was health spokesperson in the Fife Council administration before stepping down upon his election to parliament.

Political views

Leadership elections

Labour deputy leadership 2025: Downie was one of 117 Labour MPs who nominated Lucy Powell 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.

Powell, the former leader of the House of Commons, was seen as a candidate representing the party’s “soft left”; she was supported by leading soft left figures including Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham. She secured 117 nominations from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), above the 80 required, and went on to win the election – defeating Bridget Phillipson with 54.3% of the vote.

Factional identity and party tradition

Living Standards Coalition: Downie is a member of the Living Standards Coalition organising committee. Established in July 2025, the group’s stated aim was to develop and promote policy ideas that directly reduce everyday costs for households, particularly in areas such as food, energy, housing and childcare. In an open letter published upon its founding, addressed to Keir Starmer, the MPs wrote: “Our constituents will ask one question at the next election: did this Labour government make me better off?”

They added: “To raise living standards, we support government interventions that will help to increase incomes and lower costs.”

In a July 2025 LabourList article, written alongside his fellow members of the organising committee, Downie said that the coalition would “help us keep the political focus on living standards while putting forward supportive ideas that will get bills down and incomes rising.”

He added: “The Living Standards Coalition is about celebrating this government’s achievements on living standards, keeping the political focus on them, and providing ideas to help make voters better off. It is core to our Labour values and what voters will judge us against at the next election.”

Labour Friends of Nato: Downie is a patron of Labour Friends of Nato (LFN), a parliamentary network and pressure group established in January 2026 to reinforce the Labour Party’s commitment to the Atlantic alliance. According to a LabourList report, the group seeks to deepen understanding of Nato’s strategic role among MPs and party activists. It also seeks to provide a platform to rebut political arguments from both the left and right that seek to diminish Britain’s involvement in the treaty.

The formation of the network was framed by its founders as a return to the post-war traditions of the Clement Attlee government, which helped establish the alliance.

The group set up with plans to organise fact-finding missions to Nato’s military and political headquarters in Brussels, and host an annual lecture in honour of Ernest Bevin, the former foreign secretary and Nato treaty signatory.

Get Britain Working Group: Downie has also been listed as a member of the Get Britain Working Group of Labour MPs – a caucus supportive of the Starmer leadership’s position on welfare. The group argues for a “new social contract built on employment and opportunity”, focusing on the rising number of people out of the workforce due to long-term sickness.

In an open letter, issued upon the group’s founding in March 2025, the group expressed its support for the government’s welfare measures set out in the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill. The bill was subject to a significant revolt of over 120 Labour MPs – which forced ministers into a series of concessions shortly before its first vote in the House of Commons.

Ahead of the bill’s fraught second reading debate, the MPs wrote: “Our Labour values are built on a simple but powerful idea: that every individual, regardless of background or circumstance, should have the support they need to make the most of their lives.

“Everyone who is capable of working deserves the security, dignity and agency that employment offers. Of course, there are some people who are not able to work and they must be treated with compassion and respect. But for those that can, we must restore the pathways to opportunity which are currently so sparse for millions of people.

“It is exactly what a Labour government exists to do.”

Welfare

Welfare vote (July 2025): Downie 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

Downie 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).

In a statement issued after the bill’s second reading, Downie said: “My view is the status quo isn’t suitable and that a change is needed in the law to allow those with terminal conditions to choose, if they wish, to end their life on their terms, with adequate safeguards in place.”

Social values and conscience issues

Abortion decriminalisation (2025): Downie 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.

Foreign policy and security

IPAC: Downie is a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) – an international, cross-party network of legislators from democratic countries focused on relations with the People’s Republic of China. The alliance, established on 4 June 2020, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, was formed to unite “lawmakers worldwide, promoting democracy and addressing threats to the rules-based and human rights systems posed by the rise of China.”

Before Politics

Born in December 1980 in Edinburgh, Downie spent time in Germany as a child. Aged six, his family moved to Berlin, where they lived on a British Royal Air Force station, RAF Gatow, for three and a half years.

He played football for FC Westend, a German club based nearby.

The family then moved to Warrington before returning to Edinburgh,

He attended Craigmount High School and studied politics at the University of Stirling, graduating in 2002.

Downie worked in communications and consultancy roles before his election to parliament. He was director at Orbit Communications, a PR and public affairs company based in Edinburgh, from 2012 to 2023.