British Labour Co-op politician (born 1975)
Alexander David Sobel
(born 26 April 1975)
[1]
is a British
Labour and Co-operative
politician who was the
Member of Parliament
(MP) for
Leeds North West
from the
2017 general election
until the
dissolution of Parliament
on 30 May 2024.
[2]
Following boundary changes he is standing as a candidate for the new
Leeds Central and Headingley
constituency in the
2024 general election
.
[3]
He served as Shadow Minister for Nature Recovery and the Domestic Environment from 2021 to 2023.
[4]
[5]
Early life
[
edit
]
Sobel was born on 26 April 1975 in
Hyde Park
,
Leeds
on 26 April 1975,
[1]
to parents who came to England from Israel in 1971.
[6]
He grew up in
Beaconsfield
, attending Holtspur Middle School and
John Hampden Grammar School
.
[7]
As a teenager, he joined anti-fascist and environmental protests in Leeds.
[8]
After graduating in
information systems
at the
University of Leeds
in 1997, Sobel worked with social enterprises, and ran the regional body Social Enterprise Yorkshire and the Humber from 2009 until 2017.
[9]
[10]
Political career
[
edit
]
Sobel joined the
Labour Party
in 1997.
[8]
In the
2005 general election
, he was the Labour candidate for the
Beaconsfield
constituency.
[8]
He finished 3rd, receiving 8,422 votes and 19.4% of the vote.
[11]
After standing unsuccessfully in four
Leeds City Council
elections between 2002 and 2007, he was elected as a Labour councillor for the
Moortown
ward in the
2012 council election
, and was re-elected in the
2016 council election
.
[12]
[13]
[14]
He led the council's work on air pollution and climate change.
[15]
In the
2015 United Kingdom general election
, he unsuccessfully contested the
Leeds North West
constituency. Sobel finished in second place behind the incumbent
Liberal Democrat
MP
Greg Mulholland
, receiving 13,041 votes and 30.1% of the vote.
[16]
He was involved in the Leeds Campaign against the Bedroom Tax. During the election, Sobel and the Leeds North West Labour Party were required to publish an apology leaflet and pay legal costs after falsely claiming that the incumbent
Liberal Democrat
MP
Greg Mulholland
voted for the
Academies Act 2010
.
[17]
In December 2015, Sobel co-founded the activist group
Open Labour
.
[18]
At the
2017 general election
, he was elected as MP for Leeds North West, gaining the seat from Greg Mulholland.
[19]
[20]
Sobel won 20,416 votes, with 44.1% of the vote and a majority of 4,224.
[20]
In October 2017, Sobel was elected as one of the officers of the
All-Party Parliamentary Group
on rare, genetic and undiagnosed conditions.
[21]
In 2019, he formed an All-Party Parliamentary Group aiming to reduce carbon emissions to
net zero
as early as possible.
[22]
On 15 March 2019, Sobel supported
Youth Strike for Climate
, speaking at one of their school strikes, also praising Leeds City Council's decision to declare a Climate Emergency, saying "We will be the biggest council in the country to have declared a climate emergency. Nearly 800,000 people live in our great city."
[23]
In October 2019 Alex Sobel openly supported and spoke at an
Extinction Rebellion
occupation of Westminster, London despite warnings by the Met Police he could be arrested if he did so.
[24]
"I'm here right in front of Parliament because the Government hasn't declared a climate emergency, they haven't conceded to any of three demands of Extinction Rebellion, and action needs to happen immediately,"
"We are not seeing a fall in our climate emissions, we are not seeing the transformation of our society that we need if we are to avoid warming of over one and a half degrees and the terrible climatic effects that will bring and what's really important here is one, we're building public pressure, and two we're pressuring the legislature, we're pressuring Parliament."
Sobel was re-elected at the
2019 general election
with an increased majority of 10,749.
[25]
In January 2020, Sobel apologised after receiving criticism for meeting with the director of
Population Matters
, a controversial human
population control
charity.
[26]
In April 2020, Sobel became shadow
minister for arts, heritage and tourism
.
[27]
In March 2021, Sobel wrote a letter to
Robert Jenrick
, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, on behalf of Group for Action on
Leeds Bradford Airport
(GALBA).
[28]
"I have requested that the split decision of the cross party plans panel to grant the new terminal and extend flight times at Leeds Bradford Airport be called in by the Government. This application was predicated on an expansion of flights equating to 3 million more passengers annually which is not in keeping with the sixth and subsequent UK carbon budgets which calls for no net increase in aviation emissions, nor is it in keeping with the recent Heathrow judgement in the Supreme Court."
"I do not believe that a local plans panel of 14 councillors is in any way a competent body to be making a decision of this significance. Applications which significantly affect the Carbon Budget must be made nationally. We need a national aviation plan and significant measures to reduce net emissions from UK flights. I look forward to seeing these in the Government's response to the Committee on Climate Change's Sixth Carbon Budget Report."
In December 2021, Sobel became Shadow Minister for Nature Recovery and the Domestic Environment.
[4]
He left the position in the
2023 British shadow cabinet reshuffle
.
[29]
In July 2023 the
New Statesman
named Sobel within a small list of Labour MPs who understand climate change. In this article he was described by Richard Benwell as having a "Hermione Granger-style time-turner because he is indefatigable in turning up to almost every environment event".
[30]
In the
2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies
, the
Headingley
and
Weetwood
wards of the
Leeds North West
constituency were moved into the newly-created
Leeds Central and Headingley
, and Sobel is the Labour and Cooperative candidate for that seat in the
2024 United Kingdom general election
to be held on 4 July 2024.
[3]
[31]
Personal life
[
edit
]
Sobel is married, with two sons and lives in Leeds.
[9]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
"Alex Sobel MP"
.
myparliament.info
. MyParliament. Archived from
the original
on 16 September 2017
. Retrieved
15 September
2017
.
- ^
"85 Leeds North West Borough Constituency Alexander David Sobel"
.
The London Gazette
(61961): 11779. 19 June 2017.
- ^
a
b
Lomax, Claire (1 June 2023).
"Otley set for new MP as boundary shake-up splits constituency"
.
Wharfedale Observer
. Retrieved
2 June
2024
.
- ^
a
b
"Alex Sobel: Parliamentary career"
. UK Parliament
. Retrieved
14 June
2023
.
Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) 4 December 2021 - Present
- ^
"Meet our Shadow Cabinet"
.
The Labour Party
. Archived from
the original
on 14 June 2023
. Retrieved
14 June
2023
.
- ^
Cohen, Justin (16 July 2017).
"New Jewish MP 'proud' to represent city his immigrant parents made home"
.
Jewish News
. Retrieved
18 July
2017
.
- ^
"Beaconsfield: Alex Sobel (Labour)"
.
Bucks Free Press
. 25 April 2005
. Retrieved
7 July
2020
.
- ^
a
b
c
"MP Alex Sobel discusses abuse and being in Labour despite antisemitism crisis"
.
www.thejc.com
. Retrieved
14 December
2019
.
- ^
a
b
Who's who 2018
. London:
A&C Black
, an imprint of
Bloomsbury Publishing
. 2018. p. 2286.
ISBN
978-1-4729-3501-4
. Retrieved
18 November
2023
– via
Internet Archive
.
- ^
"Labour and Green Party election candidates announced for Leeds North West"
.
Ilkley Gazette
. Retrieved
14 December
2019
.
- ^
"Election Data 2005"
.
Electoral Calculus
. Archived from
the original
on 15 October 2011
. Retrieved
18 October
2015
.
- ^
The Thoresby Society
(5 August 2017).
"Index of Leeds City Council election candidates 1980-2016"
(PDF)
.
thoresby.org.uk
(2nd ed.). p. 32.
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on 18 November 2023
. Retrieved
18 November
2023
.
- ^
Rallings, Colin
;
Thrasher, Michael
.
"Leeds City Council Election Results 1973-2012"
(PDF)
.
electionscentre.co.uk
. pp. 25, 26, 27, 31, 36.
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on 27 June 2020
. Retrieved
24 June
2020
. Elections Centre, Plymouth University
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: postscript (
link
)
- ^
Teale, Andrew.
"Local Elections Archive Project ? Moortown Ward"
.
andrewteale.me.uk
. Retrieved
18 November
2023
.
- ^
"Real time #ElectionLeaflet monitoring"
.
ElectionLeaflets.org
. Retrieved
13 June
2017
.
- ^
"Election Data 2015"
.
Electoral Calculus
. Archived from
the original
on 17 October 2015
. Retrieved
17 October
2015
.
- ^
"Labour party forced to send out apologies"
.
Ilkley Gazette
. Retrieved
14 December
2019
.
- ^
Letters (9 December 2015).
"Time to unite Labour's democratic left - Letters"
.
The Guardian
.
ISSN
0261-3077
. Retrieved
14 December
2019
.
- ^
Bryson, Julia (9 June 2017).
"Young vote against Lib Dems in Yorkshire"
. Retrieved
14 December
2019
.
- ^
a
b
"Leeds North West"
.
Election 2017
. BBC
. Retrieved
9 June
2017
.
- ^
"The Westminster All Party Parliamentary Group on Rare, Genetic and Undiagnosed Conditions"
. Genetic Alliance UK
. Retrieved
26 October
2017
.
- ^
"Shadow Foreign Office role for MP"
.
Ilkley Gazette
. Retrieved
14 December
2019
.
- ^
Sobel, Alex (19 March 2019).
"MP Speaks at Youth Climate Change Rally as City Council Declare 'Climate Emergency'
"
.
alexsobel.co.uk
.
- ^
Scott, Geraldine (9 October 2019).
"
'My personal wellbeing is less important than the planet' - MP Alex Sobel speaks at Extinction Rebellion demonstrations"
.
Yorkshire Evening Post
.
- ^
Hyde, Nathan (13 December 2019).
"Leeds Labour MP slams party over antisemitism and calls for new leader"
.
Leeds Live
. Retrieved
13 November
2021
.
- ^
Cooper, Joe (31 January 2020).
"Leeds MP Alex Sobel apologises for meeting 'controversial' population size charity"
.
Yorkshire Evening Post
. Retrieved
13 November
2021
.
- ^
"Shadow Cabinet post for Otley's MP"
.
Bradford Telegraph and Argus
. Retrieved
15 April
2020
.
- ^
"GALBA Welcomes Alex Sobel MP's Support in Calling-In the LBA Expansion Application"
.
www.galba.uk
. Retrieved
19 November
2023
.
- ^
"Meet our Shadow Cabinet"
.
The Labour Party
. Retrieved
8 September
2023
.
- ^
Bourke, India (19 July 2023).
"Who in Labour gets climate and nature?"
.
New Statesman
. Retrieved
19 November
2023
.
- ^
"Home page"
. Alex Sobel.
Archived
from the original on 2 June 2024
. Retrieved
2 June
2024
.
I am the Labour and Cooperative candidate for Leeds Central and Headingley constituency.
External links
[
edit
]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Alex Sobel
.