Stella Creasy was first elected as the Labour MP for Walthamstow in 2010, being reelected in 2019 with a majority of 30,862.
The constituency of Walthamstow is found in North London just to the north of the Olympic village, and just off the A12. Although it was won narrowly by the Conservative Party in 1987, this has become an exceptionally safe Labour in recent years. This is a very ethnically diverse part of London with over a quarter of the electorate of Asian descent. Some two thirds of the electorate backed Remain in the 2016 EU referendum.
Creasy served as an Opposition Spokesperson on Business, and Crime Prevention, under Ed Miliband. She came second in the 2015 Labour Deputy leadership election.
Born in 1977, Creasy gained a PhD in psychology and won the 2005 Richard Titmuss Prize at the London School of Economics. Creasy also attended Cambridge University, and in 2022 revealed how she had been threatened with gang rape as a student at Cambridge.
Prior to being elected to Parliament, Stella was the head of Public Affairs and Campaigns at the Scout Association. Creasy also served as a local councillor in Waltham Forest between 2002 and 2006.
Creasy nominated Lisa Nandy in the 2020 Labour leadership election and supported Owen Smith in his 2016 challenge to Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn. She was one of the most outspoken critics of the internal culture of the Labour Party under Mr Corbyn. Considered to be on the right of the Labour Party, she backed David Miliband in the 2010 contest.
Creasy has described growing up in an avidly labour leaning middle class family in Colchester. Her mother was a teacher and her father was an opera singer.
In 2017 she was responsible for tabling an amendment in Parliament to allow Northern Irish women to be able to access free NHS abortions in England, something which was later adopted as government policy.
In July 2021, Creasy who was seven months pregnant at the time, threatened to sue the Parliamentary authorities after her request for full maternity cover was rejected by the Parliamentary body, IPSA. IPSA had argued that functions, such as partaking in Commons debates could only be undertaken by the elected MP themselves, and a ‘like for like replacement was thus not possible.
In late 2021, after appearing with her baby son in a Westminster Hall debate, Creasy received an email from the private secretary to the chairman of the ways and means committee, Dame Eleanor Laing, which said this was not in line with the Commons rules on “behaviour and courtesies”.
Email: stella.creasy.mp@parliament.uk
Personal Website: https://working4walthamstow.co.uk/
Twitter: twitter.com/stellacreasy
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stella-Creasy
