Julia Lopez (politician)


Julia Louise Lopez is a British Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament for Hornchurch and Upminster in Greater London since the 2017 general election. Prior to becoming an MP, she was a local councillor on the Tower Hamlets London Borough Council, and a parliamentary aide.

Early life

Julia Louise Dockerill was born on 4 June 1984 in Harlow, Essex. and grew up in Stansted Mountfitchet. She has two sisters. Her mother was a primary school teacher and her father was a businessman. She attended Bentfield Primary School, and The Hertfordshire and Essex High School in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire. Lopez studied Social and Political Sciences at Queens' College, Cambridge.

Career

From 2006, she worked as a researcher in the parliamentary office of then-MP for Cities of London and Westminster and vice-chairman of the Conservative Party Mark Field. She became his chief of staff and co-authored two of his books Between the Crashes and The Best of Times. Dockerill has also worked as a ghostwriter. While Dockerill was Field's parliamentary aide she was photographed in November 2016 carrying confidential notes on a Brexit-related meeting in Downing Street which indicated that the UK would not stay in the single market, and would not seek a transitional deal with the EU.
In 2014, Dockerill was elected as a councillor for St Katharine's and Wapping ward on Tower Hamlets London Borough Council. In April 2017, she was selected as the Conservative candidate for Hornchurch and Upminster. The seat had been previously represented by Conservative MP Angela Watkinson since its formation in 2010 who had also represented the earlier constituency of Upminster since 2001. Dockerill was elected as MP in the 2017 general election with a majority of 17,723 votes. In the parliament, she has sat on the International Trade Select Committee since September 2017.
Lopez supported Brexit in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. She voted against then Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit withdrawal agreement in early 2019. In the indicative votes on 27 March, she voted against a referendum on a withdrawal agreement. In October, Lopez voted for Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit withdrawal agreement. In the December 2019 general election, she was re-elected with an increased majority of 23,308 votes.
In February 2020, Lopez joined the Government as the Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office, succeeding Jeremy Quin.

Personal life

She married her British-Australian long-term partner, who was born in El Salvador, in September 2017 and she adopted his surname of Lopez. He works in the information technology sector as a developer. They have a daughter.