Jon Cruddas was first elected as the Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham in 2001, being reelected in 2019 with a majority of just 293 over the Conservative Party.
The Dagenham and Rainham constituency is found along the A13 in the east of London running up to the border with Essex. Formerly a white working class area, Dagenham was known for the Ford car plant. In recent years this area has become more ethnically diverse.
Although this has long been a traditional Labour area, the Conservatives have been steadily narrowing Labour’s hold here and have come close to winning in both 2010 and 2019. Although no longer a political force, polling just 239 votes in 2017, the Far Right, BNP obtained 4,952 votes in this seat in 2010 (11.2%). Some 70% of the local electorate backed Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum.
Cruddas contested the Labour Deputy leadership election in 2007, albeit unsuccessfully. He is considered on the right of the Labour Party, but opposed the introduction of tuition fees by the Labour government in 2004.
Cruddas has at times been a critic of Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party. He wrote in an op-ed for politics.co.uk ahead of the party’s annual conference in 2023:
Respect, tolerance and pluralism represent our party’s core values. This reality was understood by Tony Blair. Every leader before Keir Starmer has accepted a broad cohabitation of traditions – it’s what we call Labour’s ‘broad church’. The suppression of certain traditions …, simply narrows the congregation so that it becomes unwelcoming or actively hostile to any who don’t fit the dominant ideological mould.
He added: “Labour’s proud history of pluralism is in danger of being threatened just when our party and the country needs it most”.
Jon Cruddas: ‘Every leader before Keir Starmer has accepted Labour is a broad church. Why can’t he?’
Born in 1962, Cruddas was educated at Warwick University where he studied for a PhD in philosophy.
In August 2022, Cruddas announced that he was going to step down from parliament at the next election.
Before becoming an MP, Jon Cruddas worked for the Labour Party both in the policy department and then in the General Secretary’s office. Between 1997 and 2001, Jon Cruddas worked in Downing Street under Tony Blair.
He supported Lisa Nandy in the 2020 Labour Leadership election, and voted for Owen Smith in his 2016 challenge to Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership.
Cruddas published a book, ‘The Dignity of Labour’ in 2021, in which he claims that Blairism and radical left techno-utopianism have a number of similarities..
Jon Cruddas is Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Deliberative Democracy; Angling; and Faith and Society.
Email: cruddasj@parliament.uk
Personal Website: http://www.joncruddas.org.uk/
Twitter: @Joncruddas_1
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/JonCruddas?fref=ts
