Luke Murphy is the Labour MP for Basingstoke, having first been elected to parliament at the 2024 general election.

In the 2024 general election, Murphy won 20,922 votes, representing 42.7% of the vote. The Conservative candidate, Maria Miller, received 14,438 votes (29.5%), while the Reform UK candidate, Ray Saint, secured 6,314 votes (12.9%). Murphy was duly elected with a majority of 6,484.

The Basingstoke constituency is located in Hampshire, in the South East of England. The seat was held by the Conservative Party from 1924 to 2024.

Political Career

Murphy serves as a parliamentary private secretary (PPS) in the Department for Transport (since April 2026). A PPS acts as an unpaid parliamentary assistant, providing a link between the senior frontbencher and backbench MPs. The role is widely regarded as the first step on the ministerial ladder. Although they cannot speak for the government in debates, a PPS is bound by collective responsibility and becomes part of the so-called “payroll vote”, expected to support the official line in all divisions.

In May 2026, Murphy was among the over 100 Labour MPs who signed a joint statement insisting it was “no time for a leadership contest.” The letter was an intervention in the political crisis engulfing Keir Starmer’s premiership, after Labour suffered heavy losses in the 2026 local elections and devolved elections to the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru. It was organised as a counterweight to a mounting rebellion that had seen high-profile figures, including some ministers, call for Starmer’s resignation.

The statement read: “Last week we had a devastatingly tough set of election results. It shows we have a hard job ahead to win back trust from the electorate.

“That job needs to start today – with all of us working together to deliver the change the country needs.

“We must focus on that. This is no time for a leadership contest.”

Murphy has sat as a member of the House of Commons Treasury committee (2025-2026) and energy security and net zero committee (2024-2025).

Murphy is a patron of LGBT+ Labour – a socialist society formally affiliated with the Labour Party.

Murphy is listed as a member of the all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) for the Central South (chair) and town centres.

Murphy delivered his maiden speech on 7 October 2024 during a debate on NHS performance.

In it, he said: “It is true that my grandparents rubbed shoulders with members of this House… but that was because my grandparents cleaned the mansion blocks in which they lived on Victoria Street…

“It is because of their extraordinary hard work and that of my parents, Liz and Sean – a carpenter and an IT manager who left school at 15 with no qualifications – that I have been able to make it to this House today.”

He added: “Nowhere will I work harder than in support of our NHS… I have seen at first hand the power of the NHS and the increasing strain, mismanagement and decline of the past 14 years…

“Securing the return of the family doctor is a popular and much-needed policy locally, and I mean to ensure that we deliver it, just as I will continue to campaign for the delivery of our much-needed new hospital.”

Before entering parliament, Murphy served as a Labour councillor on Lambeth London Borough Council from 2016 to 2018.

Political Views

Leadership elections

Labour deputy leadership 2025: Murphy 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.

Factional identity and party tradition

Living Standards Coalition: Murphy is a member of the Living Standards Coalition’s 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 July 2025, Murphy was among the Living Standards Coalition MPs who urged Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, to explore overhauling UK energy bills to cut costs for the those who use the least power.

Murphy said: “The high energy costs which we inherited from the Conservatives are a barrier to higher growth and living standards. Yet the Conservatives and Reform want to make us more reliant on fossil fuels, which are the main cause for high and volatile energy bills.

“The government must instead continue to drive towards clean energy 2030, which will lower bills for good and focus on reforms that will also bring bills down in the near term. This should include looking at the role of smart energy market reform, a social tariff, reforming standing charges, and reforming regressive levies.”

Common Endeavour: Murphy has been identified with the Common Endeavour group, a collective of Labour MPs from the party’s “broad centre” which set out a series of essays alongside the Fabian society focused on how “Labour can apply its values to the problems we face in the second quarter of the 21st century.”

The Fabian Society pamphlet, Common Endeavour: Building a Stronger Britain (April 2026), defined four generational challenges: “affordability, capacity, security, and solidarity.”

The group’s platform, set out in the essays, included calls for a fundamental reappraisal of the UK’s international alliances, reduced strategic dependence on the United States and the pursuit of a closer, Swiss-style relationship with the European Union, including an “emergency brake” on freedom of movement.

The essays were penned by the Labour MPs Liam Byrne, Anna Gelderd, Andrew Lewin, Anneliese Dodds, Alex Baker, Calvin Bailey and Jeevun Sandher, alongside Murphy.

The introduction to the group of essays referred to the phrase used in Clause IV of the Labour Party constitution, which argues that the movement achieves more by “the strength of our common endeavour”.

In a New Statesman article, the MPs rejected the “embrace of ethnocratic division and plutocratic Thatcherism” by their political opponents.

The piece added: “Their values will make us weaker by dividing us ever further. They would have us draw away from like-minded allies in Europe and leave us more dependent on mad fossil fuel-obsessed dictators from abroad.

“And they’d indiscriminately deport our friends, neighbours, and those that sit by our relatives’ bedsides as they suffer. They’d make our nation weaker, because they do not think we achieve more together than we achieve alone.”

Murphy penned two essays centred on climate change and the need for a more “active state”.

In his first contribution, Murphy described climate action as “electorally popular, economically advantageous and a moral imperative” when it is done correctly. He pointed to a “perception gap” created by increased polarisation between the right and left, meaning politicians are liable to underestimate “how supportive the public is of climate action.”

Murphy urged the government to embrace narratives that “connect climate action to everyday concerns rather than presenting it as an abstract moral imperative.”

In his second essay, Murphy argued in favour of a stronger, more activist state and against a “laissez faire economic approach”, which he blamed for the UK’s stagnant productivity and regional imbalances.

He called for the government to move away from the highly-centralised British state, suggesting the UK was “trapped between policies set at a national level which are too broad to be meaningful, and at the local level, which are too small to reap the benefits.”

Murphy argued: “Only an active state, charged with raising the productivity across the economy, driving up living standards and driving growth in every region across the country, can ready the UK for this new era.”

Labour Friends of Nato: Murphy 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.

Fair elections APPG: Murphy is listed as a supporter of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for fair elections – a cross-party group of MPs and peers that campaigns for electoral reform. The group’s stated aims include replacing the first past the post (FPTP) voting system with a form of proportional representation, eliminating “dark money” and “undemocratic influence” from politics, and countering disinformation.

Labour Housing: Murphy was endorsed by the Labour Housing Group, a long-standing socialist society affiliated with the Labour party, at the 2024 general election. The group advocates a significant expansion of council and social housing, reform of the private rented sector to strengthen tenants’ rights, and tackling homelessness and poor housing conditions.

SERA: Murphy has been listed as a member of the Socialist Environment and Resources Association (SERA) – a socialist society affiliated with the Labour Party. Founded in 1973, SERA is the party’s official environmental campaign group. The organisation campaigns on a wide range of issues, including renewable energy, biodiversity, air quality and the transition to a green economy. SERA describes its member MPs as “champions for the environment”.

Welfare

Welfare vote (July 2025): Murphy 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

Murphy 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): Murphy 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.

Palestine

Palestinian recognition letter (July 2025): In July 2025, Murphy was among the over 254 MPs to sign a cross-party letter calling for the government to immediately recognise the state of Palestine. The letter called on the prime minister and foreign secretary to recognise Palestine at the UN Conference then taking place in New York.

Before Politics

Luke Sean Murphy studied politics and economics at the University of Bath, graduating in 2005. He obtained a masters degree in international politics from SOAS University of London in 2007.

Murphy initially worked in the offices of Labour MPs Sally Keeble and Jack Dromey (2009-2013).

He went on to work as a political adviser to the shadow housing minister and shadow secretary of state for communities and local government (2013-2015).

From 2016 to 2024, Murphy worked for the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a leading progressive think tank. He was head of IPPR’s Fair Transition Unit and led the energy, climate, housing and infrastructure team. In this capacity, Murphy appeared on national broadcast media, including BBC Newsnight, ITV News, BBC Radio 4, BBC News, Channel 4 News, and TalkTV.

Personal Life

Murphy lives in his Basingstoke constituency.

In 2024, PinkNews listed Murphy among a number of out LGBTQ+ parliamentarians.

Trivia

Murphy is Basingstoke’s first ever Labour MP since the constituency’s creation in 1885 and the first non-Conservative to win election as the MP for Basingstoke since 1924.