Brendan Clarke-Smith is the Conservative MP for Bassetlaw, having first been elected to Parliament in 2019 with a majority of 14,013 over the Labour Party.
The Bassetlaw constituency is found within the county of Nottinghamshire and covers the towns of Worksop and Redford. A former mining area, Bassetlaw was held by the Labour Party continuously since 1935, but it was won by the Conservatives for the first time in 2019 and with a really substantial majority.
- Brendan Clarke-Smith MP was briefly Parliamentary Secretary in the Cabinet Office under Liz Truss between September and October 2022.
- He served briiefly as Under Secretary of State for Education between July and September 2022.
Born in 1980, Brendan Clarke-Smith grew up on a council estate and was the first member of his family to go to university, studying politics at Nottingham Trent University.
Brendan then became a teacher and later the Head of an International School in Romania, before being elected to Parliament. He is a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Romania.
He was also formerly a councillor on Newark and Sherwood District Council.
Clarke-Smith was a strong supporter of Brexit, and this constituency saw 68.3% of the electorate vote to leave the EU in 2016. He is considered to be on the right of the Conservative Party, and in the past has attracted criticism for describing food banks as a ‘political weapon’.
He has been a strong supporter of Boris Johnson throughout his time as PM, defending him on the airwaves through the ‘partygate’ affair.
He is also a member of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Brazil, Coalfield Communities, Football, Independent Education, Motor Neurone Disease, and Rural Health.
He is married to a local doctor and has one son.
Website – www.brendanclarkesmith.com
Email – brendan.clarkesmith.mp@parliament.uk
Twitter – @Bren4Bassetlaw
