Nadia Whittome MP
Official portrait, 2024
Member of Parliament forNottingham East
Incumbent
Assumed office 12 December 2019
Preceded by	Chris Leslie
Majority	15,162 (41.7%)
Personal details
Born	Nadia Edith Whittome (1996-08-29)29 August 1996 (age 28) Nottingham, England
Political party	Labour
Other political affiliations	Socialist Campaign Group
Alma mater	University of Nottingham (did not graduate)
Website	nadiawhittome.org

Nadia Edith Whittome (/ˈwɪtəm/, born 29 August 1996)^[1][2][3] is a British politician serving asMember of Parliament (MP) forNottingham East since2019. A member of theLabour Party, she was previously the youngest MP upon her election at the age of 23. She is a member of theSocialist Campaign Group.

Nadia Whittome was born on 29 August 1996 inNottingham.^[4][5] HerPunjabiSikh father migrated to the UK fromBanga, India, at the age of 21. He first worked in factories and as a miner before giving immigration advice and running a shop.^[6] Her mother is anAnglo-IndianCatholic solicitor and former member of the Labour Party, who left in protest at the amendment ofClause IV of the constitution in 1995.^[7]

Whittome grew up in a single-parent household, with a brother.^[6][8] She attended private schools in Nottingham, between the ages of 7 and 11^[9] and later attendedWest Bridgford School. She also attendedBilborough Sixth Form College, sitting two A Levels, going on to complete anaccess course atNottingham College.^[7]

Whittome began study for a law degree at theUniversity of Nottingham but did not complete it. She was later employed as a crime project worker and a carer.^[7][6][10] She has lived inThe Meadows,Top Valley, andWest Bridgford areas of Nottingham.^[11]

Whittome says she became interested in politics in 2013 due to the effects of the "bedroom tax" andausterity on her local community.^[8][12] She worked in the constituency office of theMember of Parliament (MP) forNorth West Durham,Pat Glass, Shadow Minister of State for Europe, during the2016 European Union referendum campaign.

Whittome contested the2017 Nottinghamshire County Council election as the Labour candidate for the West Bridgford West ward, coming second.^[1][13] Before her election, she was a national committee member of the pro-Remain organisationsAnother Europe Is Possible and Labour for a Socialist Europe.^[14][15][16]

Whittome was selected as the Labour candidate forNottingham East on 28 October 2019.^[17] She was elected as the MP for Nottingham East at the2019 general election with 64.3% of the vote and a majority of 17,393.^{[18][19][20][21]} At the age of 23, she was the youngest MP in theHouse of Commons, theBaby of the House, until 2023, whenKeir Mather was elected. She is also the latest-born MP to have served under the reign ofElizabeth II (the oldest beingDavid Logan, born some 125 years earlier).^[8][22] She identifies ideologically as ademocratic socialist.^[23]

Following her election, Whittome said that she would keep what she termed "a worker's wage" of £35,000 (after tax), and would donate the remainder of her £79,468 salary as an MP to local charities.^[7][24] Whittome initially supportedClive Lewis in the2020 Labour Party leadership election but when Lewis withdrew, nominatedEmily Thornberry.^[25][26][27] On 28 February 2020, Whittome announced that she would be voting forRebecca Long-Bailey for leader andDawn Butler for deputy.^[28]

In February 2020, Whittome organised a letter signed by 170 MPs demanding that Jamaican-born offenders not be deported toJamaica.^[29]

During theCOVID-19 pandemic, she worked as a part-time carer at a care home. Whittome appeared onNewsnight in April where she discussed shortages inPPE at her workplace. Shortly after her appearance on the show, she claimed that she had been dismissed from her job as a carer for "spreading misinformation". Her employer ExtraCare denied that there were any shortages in PPE at the care home, and also stated that Whittome had not been dismissed, but that her services were "no longer needed" as their own in-house care team could now meet their needs.^[30] In September ExtraCare issued a statement in which they admitted that there had been shortages of PPE at the care home, and that Whittome had helped to resolve this through public appeals in March and April.^[31]

Following election ofKeir Starmer asLeader of the Labour Party in April 2020, Whittome was appointed as theparliamentary private secretary toJonathan Ashworth, theShadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.^[32] In response to the toppling of thestatue of Edward Colston on 7 June 2020, Whittome tweeted "I celebrate these acts of resistance" and called for "a movement that will tear down systemic racism and the slave owner statues that symbolise it".^[33][34]

In September 2020, Whittome was one of 18 Labour MPs who defied the whip and voted against the Overseas Operations Bill. She said the bill was "anti-veteran, anti-human rights, and would effectively decriminalise torture". In response, she was sacked from her role as a parliamentary private secretary.^[35] In November, she signed an open letter condemning violence and discrimination against transgender people.^[36]

Whittome was critical of thePolice, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, calling it "the next step in our descent to authoritarianism" and claiming the Bill was "born out ofPriti Patel's fury atBlack Lives Matter".^[37] In May 2021, alongside celebrities and other public figures, she was a signatory to an open letter fromStylist magazine which called on the government to address what it described as an "epidemic of male violence" by funding an "ongoing, high-profile, expert-informed awareness campaign on men's violence against women and girls".^[38]

During the2022 United Kingdom railway strike, she donated £2,000 of her parliamentary salary to theNational Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers strike fund, and also joined strikers atNottingham railway station.^[39] Following theOctober 2022 Conservative Party leadership election, she tweeted thatRishi Sunak becoming Britain's first British-AsianPrime Minister was not "a win for Asian representation".^[40] She was later instructed by her party's whips to delete the tweet.^[41]

At the2024 general election, Whittome was re-elected to Parliament as MP for Nottingham East with a decreased vote share of 53.6% and a decreased majority of 15,162.^[42][43]

Whittome has led calls forGeorgia to be removed from theUK Home Office's list of 'safe' states to return asylum seekers to, saying that it is 'vital that Georgia is now removed from the safe states designation to ensure that the claims of LGBTQIA refugees are properly assessed'.^[44][45]

Whittome identifies asqueer.^[46] She speaks fluent French and German.^[47][48] In May 2021, Whittome announced that she had been suffering frompost-traumatic stress disorder and would be taking a leave of absence. On 6 September 2021, she returned to her duties in the House of Commons.^[49] She is avegan.^[50] Whittome has described herself as a baptised Catholic who does not follow any religion, and has affirmed rather than taking anoath of office.^[51]

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