Barry Strachan Gardiner (born 10 March 1957) is a British politician who has served asMember of Parliament (MP) forBrent North from1997 until the seat's abolition in 2024 andBrent West since 2024. He is a member of theLabour Party.
The son of an Olympicfootballer, Gardiner was born and educated inGlasgow before being moved toHertfordshire to be educated atHaileybury and Imperial Service College. After studying at theUniversity of St Andrews, he worked in theStudent Christian Movement and considered a career in theEpiscopal Church. He then studied philosophy atHarvard University and researched the subject atCorpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was first elected to public office inCambridge and became the youngestmayor of the city in 1992. Leaving local government in 1994, he worked in marinearbitration before being elected to Parliament at the1997 general election.
Gardiner served inTony Blair'sNew Labour government from April 2004 to June 2007 as a junior minister in theNorthern Ireland Office,Department of Trade and Industry andDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs respectively. After holding junior positions on theOfficial Opposition frontbench underEd Miliband andJeremy Corbyn, Gardiner served in Corbyn'sShadow cabinet asShadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change from June to July 2016. He subsequently served asShadow Secretary of State for International Trade andShadow Minister for International Climate Change until returning to the backbenches in April 2020.
Barry Gardiner, the son of OlympicfootballerJohn Gardiner,[2] was born inGlasgow, Scotland. His mother trained as a surgeon and was the first woman to win the gold medal for surgery at theUniversity of Glasgow.[3] Before Gardiner was eight, his father had died of lung cancer; his mother moved him toHaileybury; six years later, his mother fell ill with cancer, dying by the time Gardiner was seventeen.[4] He was educated at theindependentHigh School of Glasgow andHaileybury and Imperial Service College inHertfordshire. He received anundergraduate Master of Arts from theUniversity of St Andrews before serving for two years as full-time Scottish Regional Secretary of theStudent Christian Movement. As a young man, he planned to become anEpiscopal priest and began identifying politically withdemocratic andChristian socialism.[5][6]
In 1983, Gardiner was awarded aKennedy Memorial Trust scholarship to study philosophy atHarvard University[2] underJohn Rawls, returning to conductdoctoral research atCorpus Christi College, Cambridge for three years from 1984.[2][clarification needed] He was elected as a councillor toCambridge City Council in 1988 becomingMayor of Cambridge in 1992, the youngest mayor inthe city's 800-year history.[7][8] He left the council in 1994.[7] Before his election toParliament, he worked as a senior partner inshipping insurance andarbitration.[2]
Gardiner contested theGreater London constituency ofBrent North at the1997 general election, defeating the incumbentConservative MPRhodes Boyson by 4,019 votes. Following his election, he moved from Cambridge toHertfordshire. He made hismaiden speech on 4 July 1997.[9]
Gardiner served on theProcedure Committee, the Select Committee on Broadcasting, thePublic Accounts Committee and the Joint Committee on Consolidation of Bills.[7] He was Chair of the PLP Departmental Committee for Culture, Media and Sport and vice-chair of the PLP Departmental Committee for the Treasury.[7] He was the Chairman of the Labour Friends ofIndia, and has lectured at the Academy of National Economy inMoscow. He is a former vice-chair ofLabour Friends of Israel and remains a member.
Gardiner becameParliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) toMinister of State at theHome OfficeBeverley Hughes in 2002. In 2004, he was appointedParliamentary Under-Secretary of State at theNorthern Ireland Office, moving to the same position at theDepartment of Trade and Industry following the2005 general election. He moved to theDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in a May 2006 reshuffle and left the Government in June 2007, to once again serve as a PPS, this time to theBusiness Secretary.[10]
NewPrime MinisterGordon Brown appointed Gardiner as his special representative on forestry in July 2007.[2] He left this role "by mutual consent" on 13 September 2008 after joining other Labour MPs in declaring an MP should stand against Brown, accusing him of "vacillation, loss of international credibility and timorous political manoeuvres that the public cannot understand".[11]
Gardiner's expenses in 2008–2009 were ranked 129 out of 647 MPs whilst his 2007–2008 expenses were ranked 369.[10] He claimed for a second home, despite his constituency being near Westminster.[10] After the2010 general election, theIndependent Parliamentary Standards Authority published new expenses rules replacing funding for a second home with a London Allowance of £3,760 for MPs with seats within 20 miles of Westminster. Those who kept their seats and already owned a second home had profits "recouped".[12] The Legg Report requested Gardiner repay £174.17 for mortgage interest overpaid in 2005–06 although he voluntarily repaid £15,404.07 by April 2009.[13]
Gardiner was re-elected at the2010 general election with a majority of 8,028 votes.[14] Upon his re-election, he was described byAndrew Roth inThe Guardian as "One of the best educated and most internationally experienced MPs".[15] He nominatedDavid Miliband in the2010 Labour Party leadership election.[16]
Between 2011 and 2013, Gardiner served asEd Miliband's Special Envoy for Environment and Climate Change.[17] In June 2013, Gardiner and Conservative MPTim Yeo jointly tabled an amendment to theEnergy Bill which proposed establishing by 2014 adecarbonisation target for the UK's electricity generating sector, to be achieved by 2030. The amendment was narrowly defeated.[18]
Gardiner was appointed as Shadow Minister for Natural Environment and Fisheries in July 2013.[17] In this role, Gardiner criticised the lack of prosecutions of leading players ten months afterDavid Cameron promised that everything possible would be done to deal with crime relating to thehorse meat scandal. "The extraordinary thing is that because of its clout, industry has been able to commit what appears to be a criminal offence – selling the public horsemeat falsely labelled as beef – and just say they are sorry and didn't know".[19] He gave his support in 2014 to the first annualHen Harrier Day demonstrations inDerbyshire to highlight the illegal persecution of UKraptors.[20] In January 2015, he admitted the push by the previous Labour government to encourage car-buyers to opt fordiesel vehicles in a bid to protect the environment was "wrong", identifying that a "massive problem for public health" had been created.[21]
WhenJeremy Corbyn waselectedLeader of the Labour Party in September 2015, Gardiner moved to becoming Shadow Minister for theDepartment of Energy and Climate Change. Following astring of Shadow Cabinet resignations in June 2016, Gardiner replacedLisa Nandy asShadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.[22] In June, the department was abolished and he becameShadow Secretary of State for International Trade andShadow Minister for International Climate Change.[23]
Gardiner supported the development ofHinkley Point C nuclear power station, rejecting criticism of Chinese involvement in the project despite military and intelligence figures warning ministers that such involvement posed a threat to national security. He urgedTheresa May to tell China that Britain wanted strong investment in infrastructure projects and described her decision to halt the deal as "politically stupid" and tantamount to "closing UK Plc down".[24] He criticised May for negotiating a "rip-off deal" over its development.[25]
In October 2017, Gardiner became involved in a complaint byBoeing to theUS Department of Commerce. Boeing claimedBombardier Aerospace was 'dumping' aircraft in the US by selling them below the cost of production, due to large Canadian government subsidies.[26] The US Department had suggested the solution was a 300% tariff onBombardier CSeries being sold toDelta Air Lines, which would adversely affect prospects for the sale.[27] A major employer inBelfast, a punitive tariff again Bombardier would threaten more than 4,000 manufacturing jobs.[28] Boeing's complaint against Bombardier had made no reference to its own multibillion-dollar tax breaks fromWashington state.[29] Gardiner seized on this and accused Boeing of hypocrisy, insisting all aircraft manufacturers require government subsidies; he labelled Boeing "the king ofcorporate welfare" and a "subsidy junkie", and suggested the company was trying to "crush a competitor".[30] Boeing replied their illegal-subsidies complaint against Bombardier was about selling aircraft below the cost of production and not anti-competitive, saying it merely wanted "fairness" in "following trade rules".[31]
In response to the murder in 2018 of Saudi journalistJamal Khashoggi, Gardiner said "We must look very carefully again at the relationship we have withSaudi Arabia. What we would do certainly at the moment, and I think the government should do this, is to suspend all arms sales to the kingdom."[32]
In January 2020, Gardiner received India'sPadma Shri award for his work in the field of public affairs.[33][34] He endorsedRebecca Long-Bailey in the2020 Labour Party leadership election.[35] FollowingKeir Starmer's victory in the contest, he was stood down from the Shadow Cabinet in April of that year.[36]
After following government social distancing guidelines from March to June 2020 during theCOVID-19 pandemic, Gardiner joinedBlack Lives Matter protesters in London as they marched outside Parliament. Since the protest had ignored government guidelines, he took a test forCOVID-19 but tested negative for the virus.[37][38]
On the backbenches, Gardiner began organising a cross-party effort to bring in legislation banning fire-and-rehire practices by employers. In this role, he helped the Labourwhips office to organise the defection of Conservative MPChristian Wakeford to the Labour Party in January 2022.[39]
In 2017The Times revealed, from September 2015 to February 2017, Gardiner had received £182,284 in disclosed cash donations from Christine Lee & Co, a firm ofsolicitors which acts as the chief legal adviser to theChinese embassy. Before this, his constituency party received cash donations from the firm of £22,500 between 2009 and 2015. The paper also revealed part of this money was used to fund the employment of Daniel Wilkes, son of the firm's founderChristine Lee, in his parliamentary offices. Gardiner said the son was hired via an open recruitment process and was appointed on merit.Sir Alistair Graham, former chair of theCommittee on Standards in Public Life, called the situation "bizarre" and said "there are clearly questions to be answered".[24] AfterThe Times 2017 piece, Gardiner received a further £200,000 from Lee.[40] Gardiner received a total of £425,000 from Lee.[41]
In January 2022 Lee was declared byMI5 to be an agent working for theUnited Front Work Department of theChinese Communist Party, who was covertly "involved in political interference activities in the UK". Lee's son was employed by Gardiner's constituency office until the MI5 classification was announced.[42][43]The Times said Gardiner generally took a pro-Beijing position in his shadow portfolio dealings, but the donations were disclosed and there was no suggestion of impropriety on Gardiner's part.[44] Gardiner wrote a letter saying the amounts he received were used to fund researchers and Lee had no influence in the appointment or management of these individuals.[42]
Gardiner was portrayed by Kevin McMonagle in the 2024Amazon Prime Video drama seriesA Very Royal Scandal.[45]
Gardiner is married to Caroline Anne (née) Smith and has employed her as an office manager and executive secretary.[46] Following the 2017 general election, employing family members was banned for new MPs, however the restriction was not retroactive.[47] They have four children; one of whom,Jacob Gardiner-Smith, is a footballer.[2][48]
India[49][50]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)Before the election he was shadow minister for international climate change as well as being the international trade chief before the election.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forBrent North 1997–present | Incumbent |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change 2016 | Succeeded byas Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero |
| New office | Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade 2016–2020 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |