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This article's subject stood for re-election to the British House of Commons on 4 July. This article may be out of date during and after this period. Feel free to improve it (updates without reliable references will be removed) or discuss changes on the talk page. Remove this template once the article is no longer out of date.

Alex SobelMP
Official portrait, 2019
Shadow Minister for Nature Recovery and the Domestic Environment
In office 4 December 2021 – 5 September 2023
Leader	Keir Starmer
Preceded by	Olivia Blake
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Shadow Minister for Tourism and Heritage
In office 9 April 2020 – 4 December 2021
Leader	Keir Starmer
Preceded by	Kevin Brennan
Succeeded by	Jeff Smith
Member of Parliament for Leeds North West
In office 8 June 2017 – 30 May 2024
Preceded by	Greg Mulholland
Majority	10,749 (21.8%)
Member of Leeds City Council for Moortown
In office 3 May 2012 – 3 May 2018
Preceded by	Mark Harris
Succeeded by	Mohammed Shahzad
Personal details
Born	Alexander David Sobel (1975-04-26) 26 April 1975 (age 49) Leeds, England
Political party	Labour Co-op
Alma mater	University of Leeds
Website	alexsobel.co.uk

Alexander David Sobel (born 26 April 1975) is a British Labour and Co-operative politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds North West from the 2017 general election until the dissolution of Parliament on 30 May 2024. Following boundary changes he is standing as a candidate for the new Leeds Central and Headingley constituency in the 2024 general election . He served as Shadow Minister for Nature Recovery and the Domestic Environment from 2021 to 2023.

Early life

Sobel was born on 26 April 1975 in Hyde Park, Leeds on 26 April 1975, to parents who came to England from Israel in 1971. He grew up in Beaconsfield, attending Holtspur Middle School and John Hampden Grammar School. As a teenager, he joined anti-fascist and environmental protests in Leeds. After graduating in information systems at the University of Leeds in 1997, Sobel worked with social enterprises, and ran the regional body Social Enterprise Yorkshire and the Humber from 2009 until 2017.

Political career

Sobel joined the Labour Party in 1997. In the 2005 general election, he was the Labour candidate for the Beaconsfield constituency. He finished 3rd, receiving 8,422 votes and 19.4% of the vote. After standing unsuccessfully in four Leeds City Council elections between 2002 and 2007, he was elected as a Labour councillor for the Moortown ward in the 2012 council election, and was re-elected in the 2016 council election. He led the council's work on air pollution and climate change.

In the 2015 United Kingdom general election, he unsuccessfully contested the Leeds North West constituency. Sobel finished in second place behind the incumbent Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland, receiving 13,041 votes and 30.1% of the vote. He was involved in the Leeds Campaign against the Bedroom Tax. During the election, Sobel and the Leeds North West Labour Party were required to publish an apology leaflet and pay legal costs after falsely claiming that the incumbent Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland voted for the Academies Act 2010. In December 2015, Sobel co-founded the activist group Open Labour.

At the 2017 general election, he was elected as MP for Leeds North West, gaining the seat from Greg Mulholland. Sobel won 20,416 votes, with 44.1% of the vote and a majority of 4,224. In October 2017, Sobel was elected as one of the officers of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on rare, genetic and undiagnosed conditions. In 2019, he formed an All-Party Parliamentary Group aiming to reduce carbon emissions to net zero as early as possible.

On 15 March 2019, Sobel supported Youth Strike for Climate, speaking at one of their school strikes, also praising Leeds City Council's decision to declare a Climate Emergency, saying "We will be the biggest council in the country to have declared a climate emergency. Nearly 800,000 people live in our great city."

In October 2019 Alex Sobel openly supported and spoke at an Extinction Rebellion occupation of Westminster, London despite warnings by the Met Police he could be arrested if he did so.

"I'm here right in front of Parliament because the Government hasn't declared a climate emergency, they haven't conceded to any of three demands of Extinction Rebellion, and action needs to happen immediately," "We are not seeing a fall in our climate emissions, we are not seeing the transformation of our society that we need if we are to avoid warming of over one and a half degrees and the terrible climatic effects that will bring and what's really important here is one, we're building public pressure, and two we're pressuring the legislature, we're pressuring Parliament."

Sobel was re-elected at the 2019 general election with an increased majority of 10,749.

In January 2020, Sobel apologised after receiving criticism for meeting with the director of Population Matters, a controversial human population control charity.

In April 2020, Sobel became shadow minister for arts, heritage and tourism.

In March 2021, Sobel wrote a letter to Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, on behalf of Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport (GALBA).

"I have requested that the split decision of the cross party plans panel to grant the new terminal and extend flight times at Leeds Bradford Airport be called in by the Government. This application was predicated on an expansion of flights equating to 3 million more passengers annually which is not in keeping with the sixth and subsequent UK carbon budgets which calls for no net increase in aviation emissions, nor is it in keeping with the recent Heathrow judgement in the Supreme Court." "I do not believe that a local plans panel of 14 councillors is in any way a competent body to be making a decision of this significance. Applications which significantly affect the Carbon Budget must be made nationally. We need a national aviation plan and significant measures to reduce net emissions from UK flights. I look forward to seeing these in the Government's response to the Committee on Climate Change's Sixth Carbon Budget Report."

In December 2021, Sobel became Shadow Minister for Nature Recovery and the Domestic Environment. He left the position in the 2023 British shadow cabinet reshuffle.

In July 2023 the New Statesman named Sobel within a small list of Labour MPs who understand climate change. In this article he was described by Richard Benwell as having a "Hermione Granger-style time-turner because he is indefatigable in turning up to almost every environment event".

In the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, the Headingley and Weetwood wards of the Leeds North West constituency were moved into the newly-created Leeds Central and Headingley, and Sobel is the Labour and Cooperative candidate for that seat in the 2024 United Kingdom general election to be held on 4 July 2024.

Personal life

Sobel is married, with two sons and lives in Leeds.

References

1. ^ "Alex Sobel MP". myparliament.info. MyParliament. Archived from the original on 16 September 2017. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
2. "85 Leeds North West Borough Constituency Alexander David Sobel". The London Gazette (61961): 11779. 19 June 2017.
3. ^ Lomax, Claire (1 June 2023). "Otley set for new MP as boundary shake-up splits constituency". Wharfedale Observer. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
4. ^ "Alex Sobel: Parliamentary career". UK Parliament. Retrieved 14 June 2023. Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) 4 December 2021 - Present
5. "Meet our Shadow Cabinet". The Labour Party. Archived from the original on 14 June 2023. Retrieved 14 June 2023.
6. Cohen, Justin (16 July 2017). "New Jewish MP 'proud' to represent city his immigrant parents made home". Jewish News. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
7. "Beaconsfield: Alex Sobel (Labour)". Bucks Free Press. 25 April 2005. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
8. ^ "MP Alex Sobel discusses abuse and being in Labour despite antisemitism crisis". www.thejc.com. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
9. ^ Who's who 2018. London: A&C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. 2018. p. 2286. ISBN 978-1-4729-3501-4. Retrieved 18 November 2023 – via Internet Archive.
10. "Labour and Green Party election candidates announced for Leeds North West". Ilkley Gazette. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
11. "Election Data 2005". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
12. The Thoresby Society (5 August 2017). "Index of Leeds City Council election candidates 1980-2016" (PDF). thoresby.org.uk (2nd ed.). p. 32. Archived (PDF) from the original on 18 November 2023. Retrieved 18 November 2023.
13. Rallings, Colin; Thrasher, Michael. "Leeds City Council Election Results 1973-2012" (PDF). electionscentre.co.uk. pp. 25, 26, 27, 31, 36. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 June 2020. Retrieved 24 June 2020. Elections Centre, Plymouth University{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
14. Teale, Andrew. "Local Elections Archive Project — Moortown Ward". andrewteale.me.uk. Retrieved 18 November 2023.
15. "Real time #ElectionLeaflet monitoring". ElectionLeaflets.org. Retrieved 13 June 2017.
16. "Election Data 2015". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
17. "Labour party forced to send out apologies". Ilkley Gazette. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
18. Letters (9 December 2015). "Time to unite Labour's democratic left - Letters". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
19. Bryson, Julia (9 June 2017). "Young vote against Lib Dems in Yorkshire". Retrieved 14 December 2019.
20. ^ "Leeds North West". Election 2017. BBC. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
21. "The Westminster All Party Parliamentary Group on Rare, Genetic and Undiagnosed Conditions". Genetic Alliance UK. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
22. "Shadow Foreign Office role for MP". Ilkley Gazette. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
23. Sobel, Alex (19 March 2019). "MP Speaks at Youth Climate Change Rally as City Council Declare 'Climate Emergency'". alexsobel.co.uk.
24. Scott, Geraldine (9 October 2019). "'My personal wellbeing is less important than the planet' - MP Alex Sobel speaks at Extinction Rebellion demonstrations". Yorkshire Evening Post.
25. Hyde, Nathan (13 December 2019). "Leeds Labour MP slams party over antisemitism and calls for new leader". Leeds Live. Retrieved 13 November 2021.
26. Cooper, Joe (31 January 2020). "Leeds MP Alex Sobel apologises for meeting 'controversial' population size charity". Yorkshire Evening Post. Retrieved 13 November 2021.
27. "Shadow Cabinet post for Otley's MP". Bradford Telegraph and Argus. Retrieved 15 April 2020.
28. "GALBA Welcomes Alex Sobel MP's Support in Calling-In the LBA Expansion Application". www.galba.uk. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
29. "Meet our Shadow Cabinet". The Labour Party. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
30. Bourke, India (19 July 2023). "Who in Labour gets climate and nature?". New Statesman. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
31. "Home page". Alex Sobel. Archived from the original on 2 June 2024. Retrieved 2 June 2024. I am the Labour and Cooperative candidate for Leeds Central and Headingley constituency.

External links

• Official website
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou

• 1975 births
• Living people
• Labour Co-operative MPs for English constituencies
• UK MPs 2017–2019
• UK MPs 2019–2024
• Councillors in Leeds
• Labour Party (UK) councillors
• Alumni of the University of Leeds
• Jewish British politicians
• Members of the Fabian Society
• People from Weetwood
• People educated at John Hampden Grammar School
• English Jews