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Nicholas Hugh Brown (born 13 June 1950), known as Nick Brown, is a British former politician and
trade unionist A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle upon Tyne East between
1983 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning of the ...
and
2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...
. He represented the Labour Party until his resignation in 2023. Brown is the longest-serving Chief Whip of the Labour Party, discontinuously holding the position several times between 1997 and 2021 under Blair,
Brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing and painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors Orange (colour), orange and black. In the ...
, Miliband,
Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North since 1983. Now an independent, Corbyn had been a member of the Labour Party from 1965 until his expulsion in 202 ...
and Starmer. Brown attended Cabinet as Government Chief Whip from 1997 until 1998 and again from 2008 until 2010, and as Agriculture Minister from 1998 to 2001. Brown also held the position of
Regional Minister In England, regional ministers were appointed from 2007 on a part-time basis as part of Her Majesty's Government. Each minister had other departmental responsibilities, as well as specific responsibilities for one of the English regions. Their sta ...
for the North East between 2007 and 2010.


Early life

Nicholas Hugh Brown was born in
Hawkhurst Hawkhurst is a village and civil parish in the borough of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England. The village is located close to the border with East Sussex, around south-east of Royal Tunbridge Wells and within the High Weald Area of Outstanding N ...
,
Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...
, and brought up in
Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells (formerly, until 1909, and still commonly Tunbridge Wells) is a town in Kent, England, southeast of Central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone ...
. He was educated at Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys and the
University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...
. After graduating from university, Brown worked in the advertising department of
Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/con ...
. He then became a legal adviser to the Northern Region of the GMBATU, later GMB, based in
Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...
.


Political career


Early political career: 1980–1997

In 1980, Brown was elected to
Newcastle City Council Newcastle City Council is the local authority for the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in the ceremonial county of Tyne and Wear in North East England. Newcastle has had a council from medieval times, which has been reformed on numerous occasions. ...
as a Labour councillor, representing the
Walker Walker or The Walker may refer to: People *Walker (given name) *Walker (surname) *Walker (Brazilian footballer) (born 1982), Brazilian footballer Places In the United States *Walker, Arizona, in Yavapai County *Walker, Mono County, California * ...
ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...
. Brown was chosen as the new Labour Party candidate for the parliamentary seat after Mike Thomas, the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle upon Tyne East, defected to the SDP. Brown easily retained the seat for Labour at the 1983 general election. Originally elected to the Commons in the same year as
Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. Previously, he was Chancellor of the Ex ...
and
Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader ...
, Brown was initially close to both men, but over time became his namesake Brown's staunchest ally, though the two are unrelated. Brown was first appointed to Labour's frontbench team in 1985 as a shadow
solicitor general A solicitor general is a government official who serves as the chief representative of the government in courtroom proceedings. In systems based on the English common law that have an attorney general or equivalent position, the solicitor general ...
. In 1988, he was moved to the position of Treasury spokesperson before briefly becoming shadow spokesperson for health between 1994 and 1995. In the 1994 Labour leadership election, he supported Gordon Brown and acted as his unofficial
campaign manager A campaign manager, campaign chairperson, or campaign director is an individual whose role is to coordinate a political campaign's spending, broad tactics, and hiring. They lead operations such as Campaign finance, fundraising, advertising, Opi ...
and, according to biographer Paul Routledge, advised against his withdrawing from the contest in Blair's favour. He backed
Margaret Beckett Margaret Mary Beckett, Baroness Beckett, (; born 15 January 1943), is a British politician. She was a member of Parliament (MP) for more than 45 years, first from 1974 to 1979 and then from 1983 to 2024. A member of the Labour Party, she was ...
for leadership. In 1995, Brown was appointed as Deputy
Chief Whip The Chief Whip is a political leader whose task is to enforce the whipping system, which aims to ensure that legislators who are members of a political party attend and vote on legislation as the party leadership prescribes. United Kingdom I ...
in the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, 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 ...
and played a central role in Parliament in trying to defeat the Conservative government's parliamentary agenda.


Government: 1997–2010

Following Labour's election victory in 1997, he was appointed as Government
Chief Whip The Chief Whip is a political leader whose task is to enforce the whipping system, which aims to ensure that legislators who are members of a political party attend and vote on legislation as the party leadership prescribes. United Kingdom I ...
in the House of Commons, but stayed there only for just over a year, to then be moved to the
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food An agriculture ministry (also called an agriculture department, agriculture board, agriculture council, or agriculture agency, or ministry of rural development) is a ministry charged with agriculture. The ministry is often headed by a minister f ...
in Tony Blair's first ministerial shuffle in July 1998. This change, which followed the publication of the Routledge biography earlier that year, was widely seen as a demotion, and ascribed to his close connection with Gordon Brown. His tenure as the
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was a United Kingdom cabinet position, responsible for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The post was originally named President of the Board of Agriculture and was created in 1889 ...
saw several animal health crises, ending with the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak. Brown's handling of the outbreak was criticised by some and used to attack the government, though his handling of the crisis maintained the support of the farming and food industries and the veterinary profession throughout the crisis. Suggestions that a
vaccination Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating ...
strategy should have been practised in preference to the culling of hundreds of thousands of animals, made with the benefit of hindsight, did not help his cause, and he was demoted to Minister of State for Work, with non-voting Cabinet rank, after the general election of 2001. In June 2003, he was dropped from the Government altogether. In 2004, he was one of the organisers of a backbench rebellion against the government's proposals for the introduction of tuition fees, but hours before the vote announced that he had received significant concessions from the Government and would now support it. Some suspected that the Chancellor had placed considerable pressure on him to back down and the affair cost Brown some credibility. On 29 June 2007, Gordon Brown became Prime Minister and immediately appointed Nick Brown as the
Regional Minister In England, regional ministers were appointed from 2007 on a part-time basis as part of Her Majesty's Government. Each minister had other departmental responsibilities, as well as specific responsibilities for one of the English regions. Their sta ...
for the North East and simultaneously as the new Deputy Chief Whip. Following a government reshuffle in 2008, Gordon Brown returned Nick Brown to his original government position of Government Chief Whip, whilst retaining his position as Minister for the North East. In 2009, Brown was appointed to investigate the legitimacy of expense claims by Labour MPs between 2004 and 2008. According to ''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
'' in this period Brown himself claimed a total of £87,708 for his constituency home. Brown's mortgage interest repayments for 2007–8 totalled £6,600, but he also claimed a total of £23,068, just £15 below the maximum allowable amount for the year. The claim included £4,800 for food – the maximum allowable amount – £2,880 for repairs and insurance, £2,880 for services, £897.65 for cleaning, £1,640 for phones and £1,810 for utilities. Brown, however, has said that he saved the taxpayer a considerable amount of money by turning down a Government car and driver upon being made Chief Whip, the annual cost of which would have been around £100,000.


Opposition: 2010–2024

On 29 September 2010, newly elected Labour Party leader
Ed Miliband Edward Samuel Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero since July 2024. He has been Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for D ...
asked Brown to stand down as Chief Whip due to the need for a "break from the past". On 29 January 2011, during the ''News of the World'' phone hacking affair, Brown said that his landline may have been bugged in 1998, around the time of his being outed. He was also contacted by an undisclosed police force in the West of England in 2003, who told him that they were pursuing a phone-tapping prosecution and he was one of those who may have been targeted. The case collapsed when it reached court and full details of the allegations were never disclosed. Brown said that: "Given that it was near rince Charles' homeHighgrove, my assumption was that this might involve the Royal Family. But I was never explicitly told that." In 2014, Brown publicly opposed his party's proposal to scrap the position of
Police and Crime Commissioner A police and crime commissioner (PCC; ) is an elected official in England and Wales responsible for generally overseeing police services. A police, fire and crime commissioner (PFCC) is an elected official in England responsible for generally ...
(PCC), citing the effectiveness of the three PCCs in
North East England North East England, commonly referred to simply as the North East within England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of County DurhamNorthumberland, , Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and part of northern North Yorkshire. ...
at the time. Ahead of the 2016 EU membership referendum, Brown stated he supported remaining in the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
. On 6 October 2016, Brown was reappointed as Labour Chief Whip by
Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North (UK Parliament constituency), Islington North since 1983. Now an Independent ...
, and thus became Opposition Chief Whip in the House of Commons. Brown was again reappointed as Labour Chief Whip by Sir
Keir Starmer Sir Keir Rodney Starmer (born 2 September 1962) is a British politician and lawyer who has served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 2024 and as Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party since 2020. He previously ...
after the latter's victory in the 2020 Labour Party leadership election. This reappointment meant that Brown was the only person to have held the role for three non-consecutive terms, as well as under six different leaders (Blair, Brown, Harman, briefly Miliband, Corbyn and Starmer) across four decades. Brown left the role of Chief Whip for the third time as a result of Starmer's Shadow Cabinet reshuffle in May 2021. On 26 May 2021, Brown returned as chair of the Finance Committee. In September 2022, Brown was suspended from the Labour Party following allegations concerning an event 25 years previously, details of which were not made public. On 12 December 2023, he resigned from the Labour Party in protest at the unresolved disciplinary process. He also announced that he would not be contesting the next election.


Personal life

Brown is a holder of the freedom of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne award, a supporter of
Humanists UK Humanists UK, known from 1967 until May 2017 as the British Humanist Association (BHA), is a charitable organisation which promotes secular humanism and aims to represent Irreligion in the United Kingdom, non-religious people in the UK throug ...
, a member of GMB, and an honorary associate of the National Secular Society. He is known to have a love for
classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...
, which developed during his time at
Manchester University The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...
. Brown was a member of the
Labour Friends of Israel Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) is a group in the Parliament of the United Kingdom that advocates a strong bilateral relationship between the United Kingdom and Israel, and seeks to strengthen ties between the British Labour Party (UK), Labour ...
group. In 1998, Brown
came out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. This is often framed and debated as a privacy issue, ...
as
gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...
after a former lover contacted the ''
News of the World The ''News of the World'' was a weekly national "Tabloid journalism#Red tops, red top" Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling ...
'' offering to sell his story. In a speech, he announced: "The sun is out – and so am I." From 2012 until 2022, he was a Non-Executive Director of the Mariinsky Theatre Trust (the Anglo-Russian friendship organisation that supports the work of the
Mariinsky Theatre The Mariinsky Theatre (, also transcribed as Maryinsky or Mariyinsky) is a historic opera house in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th-century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces ...
in the UK). He is a governor of
Walker Riverside Academy Walker Riverside Academy is a co-educational secondary school and sixth form located in the Walker area of Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England. ...
, a patron of Leeds Youth Opera and a trustee of the Biscuit Factory art exhibition in Shieldfield, Newcastle. He formerly chaired the all-party parliamentary group for
motorcycle speedway Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four clockwise, anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that ...
racing.


Notes


References


External links


Nick Brown MP
official constituency website
Profile
at the Labour Party {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Nick 1950 births Living people Agriculture ministers of the United Kingdom Alumni of the University of Manchester Councillors in Newcastle upon Tyne English humanists English gay politicians Independent members of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies LGBTQ members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom Labour Friends of Israel Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom People educated at Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys People from Hawkhurst Treasurers of the Household UK MPs 1983–1987 UK MPs 1987–1992 UK MPs 1992–1997 UK MPs 1997–2001 UK MPs 2001–2005 UK MPs 2005–2010 UK MPs 2010–2015 UK MPs 2015–2017 UK MPs 2017–2019 UK MPs 2019–2024 New Labour 20th-century English LGBTQ people 21st-century English LGBTQ people