John Cryer


John Robert Cryer is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Leyton and Wanstead since the general election in May 2010. He was previously MP for Hornchurch from 1997 until his defeat at the 2005 general election. He is the Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Education

A journalist by profession, Cryer was educated at Oakbank School, Keighley, Hatfield Polytechnic and the London College of Printing.

Political career

Cryer is on the left-wing of the Labour Party and is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group. He has worked for Tribune and the Morning Star for ASLEF and the Transport and General Workers Union.
Cryer describes himself as a Eurosceptic, and was one of a few Labour MPs who campaigned and voted for the UK to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum. He has been consistently opposed to holding a Second referendum on EU membership. His seat has was targeted by the Pro-European Liberal Democrats in the 2019 general election for his support for Brexit.
As Member of Parliament for Hornchurch, Cryer had a record as a rebel. He voted against tuition fees and top-up fees for higher education, against cuts in lone parent benefits and against the Iraq War.
He was also involved in local campaigns to save a local primary school, to prevent the loss of a popular GP surgery in Rainham and against proposals to cut the number of beds at Oldchurch Hospital. He lost this marginal seat in 2005, before being selected to succeed Harry Cohen in Leyton and Wanstead, a safe Labour seat; he comfortably retained it for the party at the 2010 general election.
Cryer was one of 16 signatories of an open letter to Ed Miliband in January 2015 calling on the party to commit to oppose further austerity, take rail franchises back into public ownership and strengthen collective bargaining arrangements.
On 9 February 2015, he was elected, unopposed, to succeed Dave Watts as the Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
On 8 May 2015, Cryer was re-elected as MP for the Leyton and Wanstead constituency with 58.6% of the vote. On 8 June 2017, he was re-elected as MP for the Leyton and Wanstead constituency with 69.8% of the vote.
In July 2019, following the BBC Panorama programme "Is Labour Antisemitic?", Cryer condemned his party's attack on former staff whistleblowers who had appeared in the programme as "a gross misjudgment".

Personal life

He is the son of Ann Cryer and Bob Cryer, both former Labour MPs. As a child he appeared as an extra in the film The Railway Children. His second wife is Ellie Reeves, a Labour MP for Lewisham West and Penge and Labour NEC member from 2006–2016 and a trade union lawyer, who is the sister of Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.