Paula Barker is the Labour Party MP for Liverpool Wavertree, having first been elected to Parliament in 2019 with a majority of 27,085.
She served as the Shadow Minister for Devolution and the English Regions from September 2023 to November 2023.
However, she resigned from the Labour frontbench over leader Keir Starmer’s stance on Gaza, after voting in the House of Commons for a Scottish National Party amendment calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The Liverpool Wavertree constituency covers the areas of Broad Green, Edge Hill and Wavertree in the south east of the City. This has been a Labour seat ever since the Second World War, and with three quarters of the electorate backing Labour, it is one of the party’s safest seats at Westminster Prior to 2019 it was represented by Corbyn critic, Luciana Berger, who defected to Change UK.
Born in 1972, Paula Barker was educated at Holly Lodge Girls High School in West Derby, Liverpool. She worked in local government, and served as a Trade Union official for Unison, taking over from Angela Rayner as the Union’s North West Convenor.
A supporter of Jeremy Corbyn in previous Labour Leadership elections and of Rebecca Long Bailey in the 2020 contest, Paula Barker is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, and is on the left of the Party.
She was previously a supporter of Brexit, albeit has claimed to have softened her position on the issue in recent years.
She is Vice Chair of the separate All Party Parliamentary Groups on Cuba, Beer, and Boxing. She has also campaigned against recent changes increasing the State Pension Age for women.
Email – paula.barker.mp@parliament.uk
Website – vote.labour.org.uk/paula-barker
Twitter – @PaulaBarkerMP
