The Baroness Anderson ofStoke-on-Trent | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2017 | |
| Member of the House of Lords | |
| Life peerage 18 November 2022 | |
| Member of Parliament forStoke-on-Trent North | |
| In office 7 May 2015 – 6 November 2019 | |
| Preceded by | Joan Walley |
| Succeeded by | Jonathan Gullis |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Ruth Lauren Anderson (1979-06-29)29 June 1979 (age 46) Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Party | Labour |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Alma mater | University of Birmingham |
Ruth Lauren Anderson, Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent[1] (formerlySmeeth; born 29 June 1979) is a BritishLabour Party politician who was theMember of Parliament (MP) forStoke-on-Trent North from2015 until2019. Since 2022 she has been a member of theHouse of Lords.[2]
After working in public relations roles for theBritain Israel Communications and Research Centre andNestlé, Smeeth became more actively involved in the Labour Party. She stood as an MP candidate in the2010 election but was not elected. She was named as an intelligence source to "strictly protect" by theUS embassy in London in a 2009diplomatic cable published online in 2011.[3] During her parliamentary career she campaigned for the UK to remain in theEuropean Union. She served asParliamentary Private Secretary toTom Watson,Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, but resigned so she could vote against a second Brexit referendum. She was elected Parliamentary Chair of theJewish Labour Movement in April 2019 and served until she lost the contest for the Stoke constituency in December of that year.
Ruth Anderson was born inEdinburgh, Scotland. Her mother is from east London, and her father is aScottish trade unionist.[4] Her maternal family isJewish, and arrived in London during the 1890s, having escapedRussian pogroms.[4] She had no contact with her father after her parents divorced when she was aged three.[5]
Anderson attended school and taught at a Jewish school inBristol, where her mother was later deputy general secretary forAmicus,[4][6] and in her early life travelled extensively across the UK due to her mother's work.[7]
Anderson graduated with a degree in Politics and International Relations from theUniversity of Birmingham in 2000.[7] She worked as a policy and research officer for a trade union[7] before working in apublic relations role from January 2004 to September 2005 atSodexo. After marrying Michael Smeeth, she became director of public affairs and campaigns at theBritain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) in November 2005,[8] leaving in early 2007 to work in PR forNestlé.[9][10]
From 2010 to 2015 Smeeth was a deputy director of anti racism and fascism advocacy groupHope not Hate.[7] She has also been employed by theCommunity Security Trust and has worked for theBoard of Deputies of British Jews.[11]
Smeeth was selected as Labour Party candidate for theBurton constituency in the2010 general election, finishing 6,304 votes behindAndrew Griffiths of theConservative Party.[12] She was subsequently selected from anall-women shortlist to be Labour Party candidate for Stoke-on-Trent North, following the retirement of incumbent Labour MPJoan Walley,[13] and was subsequently elected at the2015 general election.
When she was the Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Burton, Smeeth was named in a 2009 cable from theUS embassy in London as a source to "strictly protect". According to the cable Smeeth had supplied intelligence about Prime MinisterGordon Brown's intention to call an election in late 2009, and his subsequent decision against doing so at that time.[14][15]
Smeeth backedYvette Cooper in the2015 Labour leadership election.[16]
In October 2015 Smeeth was given anadjournment debate on holiday hunger.[17][18]
In June 2016 Smeeth resigned her post asParliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the shadow Northern Ireland and Scotland teams, alongside others, in protest atJeremy Corbyn's leadership.[19] She supportedOwen Smith in the failed attempt to replace him in the2016 Labour leadership election.[20]
Smeeth campaigned for the UK to remain in theEuropean Union in the approach to the 2016 referendum.[21] Her constituency voted forBrexit by 72.1%. In November 2016, Smeeth said "I'll be voting for us to move to Article 50. The general public, especially in Stoke-on-Trent, sent a very clear message with some parts of my constituency voting 80/20 to leave. My whole priority and focus is how we can make it work".[22]
In June 2016, at the launch of theChakrabarti Report,Marc Wadsworth, a Labour Party activist, described Smeeth as working "hand-in-hand" withKate McCann ofThe Daily Telegraph, after McCann passed Smeeth his press release.[23][24][25] Smeeth later issued a statement that Wadsworth was using "traditional antisemitic slurs to attack me for being part of a 'media conspiracy'" and criticised a lack of response from Corbyn or his office, calling on him to resign.[26][27]
However, according to a video recording of the event,[23] Wadsworth did not mention a general "media conspiracy", or refer to Jews. Wadsworth said he was unaware Smeeth was Jewish, and that "I've never been called anti-semitic in my life...The Jewish people have an ally in me."[23]
Smeeth said that she received 25,000 pieces of abuse during July and August, including 20,000 in the 12-hour period immediately following the incident.[28][29] However, theJewish Voice for Labour group contested this,[30] by comparing Smeeth's claim with a study by theCommunity Service Trust, who monitor anti-Semitic and abusive media content.[31] The study found that over an entire year (encompassing the 12-hour period of Smeeth's claim of 20,000 cases) only 9,008 original tweets concerning Jews were classified as antagonistic. Other studies investigating the most abused MPs on Twitter found that Smeeth was not mentioned, since she did not exceed the threshold of abuse to be ranked.[32][33] In July 2020, Wadsworth referred to Smeeth as a "pro-Israeli government zealot".[34]
Smeeth lodged an official complaint againstMP Chris Williamson for saying the Labour Party was being “demonised as a racist party” and had “given too much ground” to people making allegations of anti-Semitism.[35] During a talk as part of the pressure campaign against Williamson Smeeth stated: "the only people weaponising anti-Semitism are the anti-Semites”.[36]
The police strengthened her security after she received a death threat.[37][38] In April 2018, Smeeth was accompanied by around 40 Labour MPs and peers to a Labour hearing into Wadsworth's conduct.[39] Wadsworth was expelled for bringing the Party into disrepute.[40]
Smeeth retained her seat in the2017 general election with a much reduced majority.
In March 2019, Smeeth resigned as PPS toTom Watson,Deputy Leader of the Labour Party to vote against a second referendum on Brexit, as Labour had instructed its MPs to abstain.[41]
In April 2019, Smeeth was elected Parliamentary Chair of theJewish Labour Movement.[42] She is a member ofLabour Friends of Israel.[43]
In theDecember 2019 general election, Smeeth lost her seat to ConservativeJonathan Gullis, who overturned her 2,359, or five per cent, majority to a 15% or 6,286 majority of his own.
Smeeth endorsedIan Murray in the2020 Labour Party deputy leadership election.[44]
It was announced on 14 October 2022, that as part of the2022 Special Honours, Smeeth would receive alife peerage.[45] On 18 November 2022, she was created Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent,ofStoke-on-Trent in theCounty of Staffordshire.[46][2]
Smeeth was married to Michael Smeeth, a business executive and the UK chair of theBritish-American Project. She describes herself as 'culturally Jewish'.[47]
In June 2020, Smeeth became chief executive ofIndex on Censorship, an organisation which campaigns for freedom of speech.[48][49] Since taking on this role she has advocated for Parliamentary bills[50][51] whichAmnesty International says "stifle free speech"[52] and which organisations including Greenpeace and the European Legal Support Centre say "will stifle a wide range of campaigns concerned with the arms trade, climate justice, human rights, international law, and international solidarity with oppressed peoples struggling for justice."[53]
Smeeth was appointed an Honorary Captain in theRoyal Naval Reserve in July 2021.[54]
In May 2025, Anderson marriedGareth Snell in a ceremony in Gibraltar.[55]
A single parent raising her daughter in a council flat, she worked her way up through the ranks of the trade union movement, eventually rising to become the Deputy General Secretary of theManufacturing, Science and Finance union (MSF), and then Amicus.
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| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forStoke-on-Trent North 2015–2019 | Succeeded by |
