Florence Eshalomi | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2024 | |||||||||||
| Chair of theHousing, Communities and Local Government Committee | |||||||||||
| Assumed office 11 September 2024 | |||||||||||
| Preceded by | Clive Betts | ||||||||||
| Member of Parliament forVauxhall and Camberwell Green Vauxhall (2019–2024) | |||||||||||
| Assumed office 12 December 2019 | |||||||||||
| Preceded by | Kate Hoey | ||||||||||
| Majority | 15,112 (40.3%) | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Member of theLondon Assembly forLambeth and Southwark | |||||||||||
| In office 5 May 2016 – 6 May 2021 | |||||||||||
| Preceded by | Valerie Shawcross | ||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Marina Ahmad | ||||||||||
| Member ofLambeth Council forBrixton Hill | |||||||||||
| In office 4 May 2006 – 3 May 2018 | |||||||||||
| Personal details | |||||||||||
| Born | Florence Dauta Nosegbe (1980-09-18)18 September 1980 (age 45) Birmingham, England | ||||||||||
| Political party | Labour Co-op | ||||||||||
| Children | 2 | ||||||||||
| Alma mater | Middlesex University (BA) | ||||||||||
| Website | Official website | ||||||||||
Florence Dauta Eshalomi (néeNosegbe; born 18 September 1980) is a British politician who has served asMember of Parliament (MP) forVauxhall and Camberwell Green, formerlyVauxhall, since 2019.[1][2][3] A Member ofLabour Co-op, she was Member of theLondon Assembly (AM) forLambeth and Southwark from 2016 to 2021.[4]
Born Florence Nosegbe inBirmingham, she is the daughter of Anthony Nosegbe and of Nigerian descent.[5][6] She is a lifelongBrixton resident and the eldest of three girls from a single parent family.[7][6] Her mother, the late Maria Da-Silva, worked as aschool teacher until her illness forced her to retire early. Florence supported her mother, who suffered fromsickle cell anaemia and kidney failure, as her carer.[6]
Eshalomi attended local schools in Lambeth including Durand Primary (now Van Gogh) and St Helen's RC Primary school andBishop Thomas Grant Secondary School. She completed her A-Levels atSt Francis Xavier Sixth Form College in Clapham South. She is the first member of her family to go to university, graduating with a BA Hons in Political & International Studies with Law fromMiddlesex University. Florence benefited from theEuropean Union-funded 'Erasmus Student Exchange' and had the opportunity to study atUtrecht University for a semester.[8]
Eshalomi started her working life as a 16-year-old atSainsbury's supermarket, Clapham High Street.
Prior to winning her seat on the London Assembly, she worked for the PR agency Four Communications as a public affairs account manager.[9]
Eshalomi served as a local councillor fromBrixton Hill onLambeth London Borough Council.[10] She represented the ward along with future Labour MPSteve Reed.
Eshalomi has previously served as a member of theProgress Strategy Board.[11] In 2016,The Times reported that "one ofMomentum's most militant factions" planned to picket an event held to support Eshalomi's candidacy for the London Assembly.[12] MPs includingChuka Umunna,Ben Bradshaw andStella Creasy strongly criticised the picket, and a spokesperson for Momentum stated that the picket was organised by a separate group and that "Momentum are fully behind Flo's campaign."[13] In the2015 leadership election Eshalomi supportedLiz Kendall to become Labour Party leader.[14]
Eshalomi was elected to theLondon Assembly on5 May 2016 with a majority of 62,243 over theConservative Party candidate Robert Flint.[15] She was lead spokesperson for the London Assembly Labour Group on Transport issues, and current Chair of the London Assembly Transport Committee.[16]
As an Assembly Member, Eshalomi has campaigned on issues including gang crime[17] and the closure of Kennington Police Station.[18][19]
Eshalomi was selected as Labour candidate for theVauxhall parliamentary constituency on 27 October 2019, afterKate Hoey, a long-standing MP of 30 years, had announced she would not stand again as Labour's candidate in the constituency. Eshalomi won the seat with a slightly reduced majority of 19,612 votes.[20][21][22]
Eshalomi made hermaiden speech in theHouse of Commons on 17 January 2020. She said that "I never imagined that almost five years to the day, as I was literally pacing up and down the maternity ward, looking over the river, trying to coerce my daughter to come out, I would now be sat in thisParliament fighting for funding for our hard-working doctors and nurses" in reference toSt Thomas' Hospital in her Vauxhall constituency. Eshalomi also prioritised more funding for theNHS andPolice, and to focus on tackling youth violence and young women facing sexual exploitation.[23] On 14 April 2020, Eshalomi was promoted to the opposition front bench as awhip.[24]
Eshalomi and her fellow black female MPs have frequently been mistaken for each other since entering parliament, with Eshalomi herself being twice mistaken for black female colleagues in the nine months since her election. Eshalomi said of the misidentifications that "The frequency is worrying and lends itself to a lazy racist view that all black people look the same". Eshalomi was wrongly identified asTaiwo Owatemi byBBC Parliament and a fellow MP ran up to her thinking she wasKate Osamor. During Eshalomi's time on theLondon Assembly, she was mistaken for ConservativeKemi Badenoch, then a fellow assembly member. Eshalomi wrote that "All those women I've referenced are individual politicians in their own right...They're women who fought to get elected. So they deserve to be named and not to be confused with other black women. This doesn't happen to some of my white female colleagues, who sometimes have their hair down, sometimes they'll have it back in a ponytail. So why is it, if we as black women change our hair or our appearance, you can't recognise us?"[25]
On 30 December 2020, Eshalomi abstained on the Future Trade Agreement between the UK and the EU, resulting in her resignation as an oppositionwhip.[26][non-primary source needed]
In May 2021, Eshalomi returned to the Labour front bench as theParliamentary private secretary (PPS) toAngela Rayner, theShadow First Secretary of State and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.[27][28]
In June 2021, a 59-year-old man fromBrixton was prosecuted after sending a stream of abusive messages to Eshalomi between December 2020 and February 2021.[29]
In the2023 British shadow cabinet reshuffle, she was appointed Shadow Minister for Democracy.[30]
In November 2023, Eshalomi abstained on anSNP motion for aKing's Speech amendment calling for a ceasefire inGaza.[31] After the vote, she immediately clarified her support for a humanitarian ceasefire[32] and has called for one in Parliament on several occasions.[33]
Eshalomi married Matthew in 2014. They have two children, who were born atSt Thomas' Hospital.[6][34] She is a Christian, and attends Our Lady Of The Rosary Roman Catholic church in Brixton.[35]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour Co-op | Florence Eshalomi | 21,528 | 57.4 | –3.1 | |
| Green | Catherine Dawkins | 6,416 | 17.1 | +13.0 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Chris French | 4,549 | 12.1 | –7.0 | |
| Conservative | Aarti Joshi | 2,809 | 7.5 | –7.0 | |
| Reform | Mike King | 2,033 | 5.4 | +3.8 | |
| SDP | Andrew McRobbie | 201 | 0.5 | N/A | |
| Majority | 15,112 | 40.3 | –1.1 | ||
| Turnout | 37,536 | 53.9 | –12.4 | ||
| Registered electors | 69,658 | ||||
| Labourhold | Swing |  8.1 | |||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour Co-op | Florence Eshalomi | 31,615 | 56.1 | 1.2 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Sarah Lewis | 12,003 | 21.3 |  0.8 | |
| Conservative | Sarah Bool | 9,422 | 16.7 | 1.9 | |
| Green | Jacqueline Bond | 2,516 | 4.5 | 2.4 | |
| Brexit Party | Andrew McGuinness | 641 | 1.1 | N/A | |
| Independent | Salah Faissal | 136 | 0.2 | N/A | |
| Majority | 19,612 | 34.8 | 1.9 | ||
| Turnout | 56,333 | 63.5 | 3.6 | ||
| Registered electors | 88,659 | ||||
| Labourhold | Swing | 1.0 | |||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Florence Eshalomi | 96,946 | 51.6 | −1.2 | |
| Conservative | Robert Flint | 34,703 | 18.5 | −0.9 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Michael Bukola | 21,489 | 11.4 | −0.3 | |
| UKIP | Idham Ramadi | 6,591 | 3.5 | +0.7 | |
| Socialist (GB) | Kevin Parkin | 1,333 | 0.7 | −1.2 | |
| All People's Party | Amadu Kanumansa | 906 | 0.5 | N/A | |
| Majority | 62,242 | 33.1 | −0.3 | ||
| Total formal votes | 187,761 | 98.8 | +0.3 | ||
| Informal votes | 2,229 | 1.2 | +0.3 | ||
| Turnout | 189,990 | 44 | +6.7 | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Adrian Garden | 1,849 | |||
| Labour | Florence Eshalomi * | 1,791 | |||
| Labour | Martin Tiedemann | 1,560 | |||
| Green | Roger Baker | 818 | |||
| Green | Andrew Child | 768 | |||
| Green | Betty Mehari | 719 | |||
| Conservative | James Calder | 415 | |||
| Conservative | Charles Tankard | 381 | |||
| Conservative | Michael Woolley | 310 | |||
| UKIP | Paul Gregory | 254 | |||
| Liberal Democrats | Chris Keating | 244 | |||
| Liberal Democrats | Liz Maffei | 231 | |||
| Liberal Democrats | Adam Pritchard | 228 | |||
| TUSC | Lisa Bainbridge | 132 | |||
| TUSC | Alex Richardson | 83 | |||
| TUSC | Jessica Walters | 74 | |||
| Total votes | 9,857 | ||||
| Labourhold | Swing | ||||
| Labourhold | Swing | ||||
| Labourhold | Swing | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Alexander Holland | 2,805 | |||
| Labour | Steve Reed * | 2,699 | |||
| Labour | Florence Nosegbe * | 2,648 | |||
| Liberal Democrats | Kate Horstead | 2,100 | |||
| Liberal Democrats | Krystal Johnson | 1,873 | |||
| Liberal Democrats | John Mead | 1,560 | |||
| Green | Thomas Law | 1,108 | |||
| Green | Elkin Atwell | 1,023 | |||
| Conservative | Tim Briggs | 873 | |||
| Green | Phillipa Marlowe-Hunt | 850 | |||
| Conservative | Victoria Edwards * | 768 | |||
| Conservative | Diana Thompson | 688 | |||
| Total votes | 18,995 | ||||
| Labourhold | Swing | ||||
| Labourhold | Swing | ||||
| Labourhold | Swing | ||||
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forVauxhall 2019–present | Incumbent |