Philip Wilson (born 31 May 1959) is a British Labour Party politician. He was elected 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 o ...

(MP) for Sedgefield in a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election ( Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to ...

that followed the resignation of

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of t ...

, former

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

, from the seat. He lost the seat at the 2019 general election to Paul Howell of the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

Early life and career

The son of a

Fishburn Fishburn is a village and civil parish in County Durham, in England. It is situated about 12 miles west of Hartlepool. It had a population of 2,454, increasing to 2,588 at the 2011 Census. Location The village lies scattered along a dry sw ...

colliery worker, Wilson has lived in the Sedgefield constituency all of his life. After attending Trimdon Secondary Modern and Sedgefield Comprehensive School, Wilson became a shop assistant before moving on to be a

clerical worker A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...

in the

civil service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

where he was a lay-trade union official. Wilson later worked as a gambling lobbyist for the

Gala Coral Group Gala Bingo is an online bingo and casino offering under the ownership of Entain. Gala Bingo was created in 1991 as a division of Bass plc. It later became an independent company, and then became the Gala Coral Group after acquiring Coral Eur ...

in the lead up to the passing of the 2005 Gambling Act, and as a director at London based public affairs consultancy Fellows’ Associates. Wilson is known for being one of the "Famous Five", a group of local Labour Party members who helped a young

get selected as the Labour candidate for Sedgefield for the 1983 general election. He subsequently worked for

in his constituency office, the Labour Party and a PR company.

Parliamentary career

Wilson was a Labour Assistant Whip from 2010 to 2015. In 2012, he was elected to the

Progress Progress is the movement towards a refined, improved, or otherwise desired state. In the context of progressivism, it refers to the proposition that advancements in technology, science, and social organization have resulted, and by extension w ...

strategy board. In his work for Progress, he was criticised for a blog post that he was accused of plagiarising. In 2013, a letter attributed to Conservative MP John Glen accused Wilson of failing to properly declare donations from

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Nissan ''zaibatsu'' and later DKB Group and Fuyo G ...

before speaking about the matter in a

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. T ...

debate. Glen subsequently accepted that Wilson was not at fault and apologised personally to him, saying the letter had been drafted on his behalf and he had not read it before it was issued. In his biography on his personal website, Wilson states that bringing a Hitachi Rail factory project to

Newton Aycliffe Newton Aycliffe is a town in County Durham, England. Founded in 1947 under the New Towns Act of 1946, the town sits about five miles to the north of Darlington and ten miles to the south of Durham. It is the oldest new town in the north of Eng ...

in his constituency represents his "proudest political achievement so far". In his 2017 general election voter leaflet, Wilson stated he was not a supporter of Labour leader

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 socialis ...

, and suggested Labour would not win the election. He had supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Corbyn in the 2016 Labour Party leadership election. In 2018, Wilson called for a second referendum on

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 Greenwich Mean Time, GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 Central Eur ...

. He said: "Before we retreat to the past, people should be given another chance to decide whether that is where they want to end up". Later he supported the proposal to join the

European Economic Area The European Economic Area (EEA) was established via the ''Agreement on the European Economic Area'', an international agreement which enables the extension of the European Union's single market to member states of the European Free Trade As ...

to mitigate the perceived disadvantages of Brexit. Wilson's constituency of Sedgefield voted to Leave the European Union by 59.4%.

References

External links

Personal website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Phil 1959 births Living people Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 2005–2010 People from Sedgefield UK MPs 2010–2015 UK MPs 2015–2017 UK MPs 2017–2019