Melanie Onn (born 19 June 1979) is a British former politician who served as

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) for

Great Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is north-east of Linc ...

from 2015 to 2019. A member of the Labour Party, she previously served as Shadow Deputy Leader of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

from September 2015 to June 2016 and

Shadow Minister for Housing The frontbench of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom consists of the Shadow Cabinet and other official shadow ministers of the political party currently serving as the Official Opposition. The Opposition fron ...

from July 2017 to March 2019. At the 2019 general election, she lost the seat to the Conservative candidate Lia Nici-Townend. After leaving Parliament, she became the Deputy Chief Executive of

RenewableUK RenewableUK, formerly known as the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), is the trade association for wind power, wave power and tidal power industries in the United Kingdom. RenewableUK has over 660 corporate members, from wind, wave and tidal st ...

Early life and career

Melanie Onn was born in

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is north-east of Linco ...

North East Lincolnshire North East Lincolnshire is a Unitary authority area with borough status in Lincolnshire, England. It borders the borough of North Lincolnshire and districts of West Lindsey and East Lindsey. The population of the district in the 2011 Census was ...

, England on 19 June 1979. She grew up in the town and lived in two housing estates (

Nunsthorpe Nunsthorpe (sometimes known locally as 'The Nunny', or by its nickname of Garden city movement, Garden City) is a suburb and housing estate in the western part of Great Grimsby, Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, England. It is situated between L ...

and Grange). Onn attended Healing School and Franklin College. At the age of 17, after falling out with her aunt, with whom she had been living, Onn sought help from Doorstep, a Grimsby-based charity which provides housing support to young people. She graduated from the University of Middlesex with a degree in politics, international studies, and philosophy. Onn worked for 10 years at the Labour Party's head office, becoming the head of the party's Compliance Unit. In 2009, she stood in the

European Parliament elections Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are considered the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's. Unti ...

for the

Yorkshire and Humber Yorkshire and the Humber is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL (UK), ITL for Office for National Statistics, statistical purposes. The population in 2011 was 5,284,000 with its largest settlements being Leeds, She ...

region, placed fifth on Labour's regional list. From 2010, she was a regional organiser for the public sector trade union

UNISON In music, unison is two or more musical parts that sound either the same pitch or pitches separated by intervals of one or more octaves, usually at the same time. ''Rhythmic unison'' is another term for homorhythm. Definition Unison or per ...

Parliamentary career

Onn was selected as the Labour candidate for

from an

all-women shortlist All-women shortlists (AWS) is an affirmative action practice intended to increase the proportion of female Members of Parliament (MPs) in the United Kingdom, allowing only women to stand in particular constituencies for a particular political p ...

in July 2014, following the announcement that the sitting MP,

Austin Mitchell Austin Vernon Mitchell (19 September 1934 – 18 August 2021) was a British academic, journalist and Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), member of Parliament (MP) for Great Grimsby (UK ...

, would retire at the next election. In the 2015 general election, she retained the seat for her party with a majority of 4,540, up from 714 in the previous election. After having been elected, Onn met with the then Prime Minister

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

, to discuss the future of a Grimsby seafood firm,

Young's Seafood Young's Seafood Ltd. is a British producer and distributor of frozen, fresh, and chilled seafood, supplying approximately 40% of all the fish eaten in the United Kingdom every year. It is headquartered in Grimsby, England. The company as it is to ...

, which was due to cut hundreds of jobs after losing a major contract to

Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company wa ...

. Onn is an advocate of the

renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...

industry and has worked to promote the industry in Grimsby, which Tom Bawden in a 2016 article in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' newspaper described as the 'renewable energy capital of England'. On 20 July 2015, she abstained from the vote on the second reading of Conservative government's Welfare Reform and Work Bill, which restricted

child benefit Child benefit or children's allowance is a social security payment which is distributed to the parents or guardians of children, teenagers and in some cases, young adults. A number of countries operate different versions of the program. In most co ...

to the first two children in a family and lowers the benefit cap from £26,000 to £20,000 per household. The bill was voted to the committee stage by 308 to 124 Members of Parliament, despite 48 Labour MPs disobeying the party line of abstention by voting against the bill. At the final third reading, Onn voted against the Welfare Reform and Work Bill along with all Labour MPs. In September 2015, Onn was appointed Shadow Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, working alongside Shadow Leader

Chris Bryant Christopher John Bryant (born 11 January 1962) is a British people, British politician and former Anglican priest who is the Chair of the Committees on Commons Select Committee on Standards, Standards and Commons Select Committee of Privileges, ...

. Onn campaigned for Britain to remain in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

, despite her constituency voting to leave by one of the largest margins in the country. Following the result, she voted in the House of Commons to trigger

Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union Withdrawal from the European Union is the legal and political process whereby an EU member state ceases to be a member of the Union. Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union ( TEU) states that "Any Member State may decide to withdraw from t ...

, the process by which member states may withdraw from the European Union, stating that it would be ‘wrong’ to attempt to block the outcome of the referendum. In September 2017, she voted against the

EU Withdrawal Bill The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (also known as the Great Repeal Act) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that provides both for repeal of the European Communities Act 1972, and for parliamentary approval to be require ...

, in line with the Labour party whip. She was among many shadow ministers from Labour's

frontbench In many parliaments and other similar assemblies, seating is typically arranged in banks or rows, with each political party or caucus grouped together. The spokespeople for each group will often sit at the front of their group, and are then know ...

to resign in summer 2016 in opposition to

Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...

's leadership. She supported

Owen Smith Owen Smith (born 2 May 1970) is a former Labour Party politician and subsequently a British lobbyist, who has been the UK government relations director for pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb since 2020. Smith was Member of Parliamen ...

in the failed attempt to replace Corbyn in the 2016 Labour leadership election. On 7 September 2016, Onn introduced a

private members' bill A private member's bill is a bill (proposed law) introduced into a legislature by a legislator who is not acting on behalf of the executive branch. The designation "private member's bill" is used in most Westminster system jurisdictions, in whi ...

to protect workers' rights in British law after

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...

. The bill was scheduled for its

second reading A reading of a bill is a stage of debate on the bill held by a general body of a legislature. In the Westminster system, developed in the United Kingdom, there are generally three readings of a bill as it passes through the stages of becoming ...

in the House of Commons on 13 January 2017, but was successfully

filibuster A filibuster is a political procedure in which one or more members of a legislative body prolong debate on proposed legislation so as to delay or entirely prevent decision. It is sometimes referred to as "talking a bill to death" or "talking out ...

ed by Conservative members of Parliament. On 3 July 2017, she returned to the Labour front bench in the position of Shadow Housing Minister. In March 2018, Onn suggested a change in law in order to classify wolf-whistles and cat-calls as hate crimes. On 27 March 2019, she resigned from the Labour front bench for a second time to vote against a second Brexit referendum. Onn voted for Boris Johnson's

Brexit withdrawal agreement The Brexit withdrawal agreement, officially titled Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, is a treaty between the European Uni ...

in Autumn 2019. Onn is a campaigner to change the law to give greater protection to alleged

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...

victims. Following the ''

R v Evans ''R v Evans and McDonald'' was the prosecution of two footballers, Ched Evans and Clayton McDonald, who were accused of the rape of a woman. On 20 April 2012, Evans was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment. McDonald was acquitted. S ...

'' case, she said that "going through the victim’s sexual history is much more likely to put people off reporting". She chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Group on

Inflammatory Bowel Disease Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a group of inflammation, inflammatory conditions of the colon (anatomy), colon and small intestine, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis being the principal types. Crohn's disease affects the small intestine a ...

. She is a member of

Labour Friends of Israel Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) is a group in the Parliament of the United Kingdom that promotes support for a strong bilateral relationship between Britain and Israel, and seeks to strengthen ties between the British Labour Party and the Isra ...

and Labour Friends of Palestine & the Middle East. At the 2019 general election, Onn stood for re-election and was one of the many Labour MPs to be defeated. Onn lost her Grimsby seat to Conservative

Lia Nici Lia Nici-Townend (born 1 August 1969) is a British Conservative Party politician. She has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Great Grimsby since the 2019 general election. She served as an Assistant Government Whip from September to October 2 ...

. She won 10,819 votes compared with 18,150 votes for the Conservatives. Although she was expecting to lose, Onn later admitted she did not expect the margin of her loss to be so large - 7,331 votes.

Later career

In February 2020, Onn was appointed as deputy chief executive of

Personal life

Onn married Christopher Jenkinson, a regional secretary for the trade union,

, in 2014. She suffers from

Crohn's disease Crohn's disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that may affect any segment of the gastrointestinal tract. Symptoms often include abdominal pain, diarrhea (which may be bloody if inflammation is severe), fever, abdominal distension ...

. She is an Ambassador for the kinship care charity Mentor and a supporter of the Family Rights Group.

References

External links