Polly Billington is the Labour Party MP for East Thanet, having first been elected to parliament at the 2024 general election.

In the 2024 general election, Billington won 17,054 votes, representing 39.9% of the vote. The Conservative candidate, Helen Harrison, received 10,083 votes (23,6%) and the Reform UK candidate received 8,591 votes (20.1%). Billington was duly elected with a majority of 6,971.

The East Thanet constituency is located in Kent, South East England. The seat was renamed ahead of the 2024 general election following boundary changes. The former South Thanet seat was held by the Conservatives from 2010 to 2024.

Billington’s immediate predecessor as the MP for the South Thanet seat was Craig Mackinlay of the Conservative Party.

Political Career

Billington currently serves as parliamentary under-secretary of state in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. She was appointed to this role in July 2026, following the Labour leadership contest and Andy Burnham’s elevation as prime minister.

In February 2025, Billington launched the Coastal Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), a caucus of over 60 Labour MPs representing constituencies along the coastline of England and Wales – referred to as the “sea wall”. Established in 2025 and chaired by Billington the group was formed to ensure that the challenges facing seaside towns were prioritised within the Labour government’s policy agenda.

Upon the formation of the caucus, Billington said she was “pleased to be chairing this new coastal grouping of Labour MPs, who will make sure that the voices of communities like ours in East Thanet are being heard loud and clear in government”.

Significantly, the group has argued that the “sea wall” of seats is vulnerable to a challenge from Reform UK. In addition, the caucus has called for the creation of a cabinet-level minister for coastal communities to coordinate policy across departments.

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

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

Billington has been listed as a member of the all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) for art, craft and design in education (chair), coastal communities (co-chair), outdoor recreation and access to nature and renewable and sustainable energy.

Billington delivered her maiden speech on 26 July 2024 in a debate on making Britain a clean energy superpower.

In it, she said: “Thanet shares challenges with many other coastal communities: poor healthcare, creaking bus services, a housing crisis partly driven by unregulated, short-term holiday lets, shocking crime statistics, blighted high streets and few good job opportunities.

“It shares opportunities, too: renewable energy, heritage, stunning natural assets and the creativity and determination of the people who live in our coastal communities.”

She added: “I have chosen Thanet and I am honoured that it has chosen me. I felt able to ask the voters of East Thanet to have me as their MP because it is a place where I can walk safely and freely in town hand in hand with my wife. That is a precious and special thing.”

Before entering parliament, Billington was elected as a Labour councillor on Hackney London Borough Council in 2018. She stood unsuccessfully as the Labour candidate for Thurrock in the 2015 general election, losing marginally to the Conservative candidate Jackie Doyle-Price who received 16,692 votes (33.7%). Billington secured 16,156 votes (32.6%).

During this campaign, she was one of 15 Labour candidates to be financially supported by Lord Matthew Oakeshott.

Billington worked as a special adviser to Ed Miliband from 2007, including acting as media director for his successful Labour leadership campaign in 2010. She was an adviser to the Labour Party under Miliband from 2010 to 2013.

Billington went to work for a brief period as director of communications for Sadiq Khan as mayor of London.

Political views

Leadership elections and loyalty

Labour deputy leadership 2025: Billington 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

SERA: Billington 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”.

Billington has previously been listed as a member of SERA’s executive committee.

Labour Friends of Nato: Billington 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.

Living Standards Coalition: Billington is a member of the Living Standards Coalition. 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.”

Welfare

Welfare ‘reasoned amendment’ (June 2025): Billington was one of the over 120 Labour MPs to sign the reasoned amendment to the government’s flagship welfare bill which aimed to reject the proposed legislation.

The amendment, in the name of senior Labour MP Dame Meg Hillier, objected to the fact that the bill had not been subject to a “formal consultation with disabled people” and that “250,000 people will be pushed into poverty” as a result of it, according to a government impact assessment.

The motion also called on the government to wait for the publication of the review into the Personal Independence Payment (Pip), helmed by minister Sir Stephen Timms, and the independent review, conducted by Sir Charlie Mayfield, into how the employment of disabled people could be boosted.

In March 2025, Billington said she was “really concerned about changes to eligibility for Personal Independence Payments which will make it harder for some people who struggle with daily tasks like washing and cooking to access support.”

Welfare vote (July 2025): Billington 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

Billington voted against 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).

Billington outlined her opposition to the bill in an article for the Spectator, published in November 2024.

Social values and conscience issues

Abortion decriminalisation (2025): Billington 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, Billington 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

Born in 1967, Billington attended the Ursuline High School in Wimbledon. She graduated from the University of Sussex in 1990 with a degree in history and French. She subsequently studied journalism at the University of Central Lancashire.

Billington worked as a broadcast journalist for the BBC, including reporting for the Today programme, News 24, Newsbeat on Radio 1, and the Politics Show.

Billington served as head of communications and campaigns at Citizens Advice from January 2013 to January 2015.

In 2016, Billington founded UK100, a network of local government leaders focused on climate action, serving as its CEO until February 2023. She received the Business Green Leader of the Year Award in 2023 for her work with UK100.

Personal Life

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

She is married.

Trivia

Billington was named the 59th most influential person on the left by the Telegraph newspaper in 2011 while working as a special adviser to Ed Miliband.

Billington’s short Telegraph bio stated: “The former Radio 1 political correspondent and Today programme reporter shocked everyone when she left broadcast media to be special adviser to Ed Miliband when he joined the cabinet in 2007.

“She tried for a seat in the North East at the last election but failed to get selected. Fiercely loyal to Miliband, she is one of his closest confidantes, although some of her influence has been eclipsed by the appointment Tom Baldwin, Torsten Henrickson-Bell and others.”