Early life
Austin was born on 6 March 1965 [1] and was adopted as a baby by Dudley school teachers Fred and Margaret Austin. Having failed the eleven-plus to attend King Edward's School, Birmingham, [2] he was educated at the Dudley School from 1977 to 1983. He studied government and politics at the University of Essex. [1]
The eleven-plus (11-plus) is an examination administered to some students in England and Northern Ireland in their last year of primary education, which governs admission to grammar schools and other secondary schools which use academic selection. The name derives from the age group for secondary entry: 11–12 years.
King Edward's School (KES) is an independent day school for boys in Edgbaston, an area of Birmingham, England. Founded by King Edward VI in 1552, it is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham.
The University of Essex is a public research university in Essex, England. It was established in 1963, welcomed its first students in 1964 and received its Royal Charter in 1965. Essex's motto, "Thought the harder, heart the keener", is adapted from the Anglo-Saxon poem The Battle of Maldon.
His adoptive father, Fred (a Czech Jew who was adopted by an English family on the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia), was head of the Dudley School from its formation in 1975 until his retirement in 1985. [3] Fred Austin, born Fredi Stiller, was awarded the MBE in the New Year's Honours List for 2006 in recognition of his service to the communities of Dudley. [4]
Czechoslovakia, or Czecho-Slovakia, was a sovereign state in Central Europe that existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until its peaceful dissolution into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 1 January 1993.
Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jewish people. It is an ancient, monotheistic, Abrahamic religion with the Torah as its foundational text. It encompasses the religion, philosophy, and culture of the Jewish people. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenant that God established with the Children of Israel. It encompasses a wide body of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. The Torah is part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible, and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash and the Talmud. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth largest religion in the world.
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established on 4 June 1917 by King George V and comprises five classes across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two of which make the recipient either a knight if male or dame if female. There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of, the order.
Austin was keen to obtain a National Union of Journalists card and took a job with Black Country Publishing in Netherton where his personal interest in sport, especially cycling (he is now chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Cycling Group) [5] and football, led him to work as a journalist on Midland Sport Magazine.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is a trade union for journalists in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and has 38,000 members. It is a member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
Netherton is an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, 1.5 miles (2 km) south of Dudley town centre in the West Midlands of England, but historically in Worcestershire. In the Black Country, Netherton is bordered by nature reserves to the east and west, and an industrial area and the Dudley Southern By-Pass to the north.
Austin was elected as a councillor in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in 1991, and served until 1995. He then moved to become press officer for the West Midlands Labour Party until 1998, when he spent a year as deputy director of communications for the Scottish Labour Party.
A Councillor is a member of a local government council.
The Metropolitan Borough of Dudley is a metropolitan borough of West Midlands in England. It was created in 1974 following the Local Government Act 1972, through a merger of the existing Dudley County Borough with the municipal boroughs of Stourbridge and Halesowen. The borough borders Sandwell to the east, the city of Birmingham to the south east, Bromsgrove to the south in Worcestershire, South Staffordshire District to the west, and the city of Wolverhampton to the north.
The Scottish Labour Party is the devolved Scottish section of the UK Labour Party.
He was appointed a political advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (later Prime Minister), Gordon Brown, in 1999. He held the position until his election in 2005, and was known as one of Brown's closest lieutenants.
The Chancellor and Under-Treasurer of Her Majesty's Exchequer, commonly known as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or simply the Chancellor, is a senior official within the Government of the United Kingdom and head of Her Majesty's Treasury. The office is a British Cabinet-level position.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, until 1801 known as the Prime Minister of Great Britain, is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister directs both the executive and the legislature, and together with their Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Monarch, to Parliament, to their political party and ultimately to the electorate. The office of Prime Minister is one of the Great Offices of State. The current holder of the office, Theresa May, leader of the Conservative Party, was appointed by the Queen on 13 July 2016.
James Gordon Brown is a British politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1997 to 2007. Brown was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1983 to 2015, first for Dunfermline East and later for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.
Parliamentary career
Austin was selected as the Labour candidate for Dudley North following the retirement of Ross Cranston, and was elected at the 2005 general election with a majority of 5,432.
Austin was reprimanded by the Speaker of the House of Commons for heckling during Prime Minister's Questions on 18 October 2006, and he was subsequently described by David Cameron as one of Gordon Brown's "boot boys". [6] The following week he was rebuked again by the Speaker for comments made towards the Conservative benches. [7]
After Gordon Brown became prime minister in June 2007, Austin was tipped for a post in Brown's inner political circle. [8] The following day he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to Gordon Brown, with a special provision to attend cabinet meetings. He was moved to a new position in the 2008 reshuffle, becoming an Assistant Whip for the Government. In the June 2009 reshuffle he entered Government as a minister for the first time, becoming Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government and Minister for the West Midlands.
Austin was re-elected at the 2010 general election, ahead of Conservative Party candidate Graeme Brown. While his own seat was a marginal in this parliamentary term, the other three Labour MPs for the borough of Dudley lost their seats. [9] He nominated Ed Balls, who came third, for the Labour leadership election of 2010. Under Ed Miliband Austin served as Shadow Minister for Culture, Media and Sport between 2010 and 2011 and Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions between 2011 and 2013. [10]
On 1 June 2012, he apologised after claiming falsely that a Palestinian human rights group, Friends of Al-Aqsa, had denied the Holocaust happened, in an article he wrote on the Labour Uncut website in 2011. He accepted that the material of which he complained had been produced by an unconnected individual. [11]
In June 2014, Deputy Speaker Dawn Primarolo told Austin to apologise after he referred to Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood as an "idiot". [12]
In October 2014, and again in December 2016, he called for greater action to limit immigration, and proposed a range of measures to achieve this, including tighter border controls, fingerprinting immigrants, deporting foreign criminals, reducing benefits entitlement, charging foreigners for NHS care, putting immigrants at the bottom of the housing list and measures to discourage the employment of immigrants rather than British citizens. [13] [14]
In the 2015 Parliament, Austin joined the Education Select Committee, and was appointed as chair of the Labour Party's education committee. Regarded as on the right of the party, he was critical of party leader Jeremy Corbyn's approach, calling for him to stop acting like a "student union president". [15] In 2013, Austin had proposed that the government should share costs with parents who in areas of poor educational attainment wished to send their children to independent schools. [16]
In July 2016, Austin was reprimanded by the Speaker of the House of Commons for heckling Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn by shouting "sit down and shut up" and "you're a disgrace", as Corbyn criticised the 2003 invasion of Iraq in his response to the publication of the Chilcot Inquiry. [17] [18]
In March 2018, Austin described Russia as "a fascist, homophobic dictatorship" and suggested the England team boycott the 2018 FIFA World Cup. [19]
In July 2018, Austin was put under investigation by the Labour Party for allegedly using abusive language towards the Party Chairman, Ian Lavery. [20] General Secretary Jennie Formby dropped the inquiry in November, although Austin did receive a reprimand from the Chief Whip. [21] [22]
He is a member of Labour Friends of Israel, while Jonathan Goldstein of the Jewish Leadership Council called him a friend and ally. [23]
Expenses
In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph reported that Austin had tried to split a claim for stamp duty on buying his second home in London into two payments and tried to claim the cost back over two financial years. This allowed him to claim the majority of the money (£21,559, just £75 short of the maximum) under his second-home allowance in the 2005/06 financial year. He then claimed for the remaining £1,344 stamp duty cost in 2006–2007, together with his legal fees. In all, he went on to claim £22,076 (£34 short of the maximum) in the next financial year. [24]
It also reported that Austin "flipped" his second-home designation weeks before buying a £270,000 London flat, and that he had claimed £467 for a stereo system for his constituency home, shortly before he changed his second-home designation to London. He then spent a further £2,800 furnishing the new London flat. [24]
Austin denied any wrongdoing, and defended his actions in an interview with local newspaper Dudley News . [25]
Brexit
In 2013, Austin became one of the first Labour MPs to call for an in/out referendum on the UK's membership of the EU. [26]
On 15 January 2019, Austin was one of only three Labour MPs to vote for Theresa May's Brexit deal in the Meaningful vote (along with Kevin Barron and John Mann). [27] [28] In the same series of votes, Austin was one of 14 Labour MPs who voted against his colleague Yvette Cooper's amendment, which was designed to prevent a no-deal Brexit by extending the article 50 negotiating period. [29]
As an independent MP
On 22 February 2019, Austin resigned from the Labour Party and became an independent MP—although he did not join The Independent Group which had been formed the same week by former Labour and Conservative MPs, owing to his disagreement with its members' desire for another referendum on Brexit. [30]
On 19 March, MPs passed a motion put forward by Labour to remove Austin, as well as Independent Group MP Mike Gapes, from the seats on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee they held as part of the Labour Party's allocation. Austin said that Jeremy Corbyn wanted "to boot me off this committee because I stood up against racism", while Labour said that it was right that the party filled its allocation of seats on the committees. [31]
