Darren Henry

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Darren Henry

MP
Official portrait of Darren Henry MP crop 2.jpg
Henry in 2020
Member of Parliament
for Broxtowe
Assumed office
12 December 2019
Preceded byAnna Soubry
Majority5,331 (9.6%)
Personal details
Born
Darren George Henry

(1968-08-04) 4 August 1968 (age 53)
Bedford, England
NationalityBritish
Political partyConservative
Spouse(s)
ResidenceBroxtowe
Alma materUniversity of Lincoln
OccupationPolitician
ProfessionLogistician
Websitewww.darrenhenry.org.uk Edit this at Wikidata
Military service
Allegiance United Kingdom
Branch/service Royal Air Force
Years of service1987–2013[citation needed]
RankSquadron Leader

Darren George Henry (born 4 August 1968)[1] is a British Conservative Party politician, who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Broxtowe since 2019. He was elected in 2019, defeating the incumbent MP, and former leader of Change UK, Anna Soubry.[2]

Early life[]

Henry was born in Bedford, England, to a Jamaican-born father, Harry. His mother, Gloria, was from Trinidad.[3] During his youth, Henry attended Rushmoor School.[4] Prior to entering politics, Henry served in the Royal Air Force.[3]

Political career[]

In early 2014, Henry joined the Conservatives, noting that whilst campaigning was possible in military service it had not occurred to him to do so up until this point.[5]

During Henry's first year of membership, he aided Robert Jenrick in his campaign to win the 2014 Newark by-election.[6]

After a few months of membership, he sought nomination to be the Conservative candidate in North West Hampshire. He was shortlisted, but lost to former Deputy Mayor of London Kit Malthouse.[7]

At the 2015 general election he was selected as the Conservative candidate for Wolverhampton North East, in the West Midlands.[8] He was also employed as General Manager at Harvest Fine Foods.[9] He came second to Labour's Emma Reynolds, seeing a decline of 4.4% in the Conservative vote share.[10]

Henry served as a parish councillor in Shrewton, Wiltshire before resigning in September 2019.[11]

Henry was also Conservative member of the Wiltshire Council unitary authority from May 2017 until January 2020.[12][13] As Henry assumed office as Member of Parliament for Broxtowe on 12 December 2019, this meant that he briefly had a dual mandate for both Wiltshire and Broxtowe.

In early 2019, Henry was shortlisted to be Wiltshire Police and Crime Commissioner,[14] but lost the selection to Jonathon Seed in April 2019.[15] The May 2020 Police and Crime Commissioner election was postponed until 2021.[16] It was won by Seed, who did not take up the post after a historical drink-driving offence was revealed.[17]

In summer 2019, he was shortlisted, along with Tony Devenish and Felicity Buchan, for the ultra-marginal West London seat of Kensington. He failed to be selected.[18]

Following this, he was selected as the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Broxtowe in September 2019.[19]

At a 2019 general election hustings in Broxtowe, Henry said that he might introduce a private member's bill for a ban on payday loans advertising, and suggested that food bank users needed help understanding money and budgeting. At the same hustings he stated; "When people are really, really down, and when people haven't got the money, one of the things they can look to do is to get a payday loan or something like that." Reaction to this speech was audibly negative.[20]

During the election, Henry leveraged an existing relationship with Robert Jenrick to have Jenrick commit to funding Stapleford (a ward within Broxtowe) with £25 million, but only if Henry won the seat and the Conservative party won a majority.[21]

In his maiden speech made on 25 June 2020,[22] which was also in the week marking 72 years since the arrival of the Windrush generation to the UK, Henry spoke negatively of Labour for its representation of immigrants and those of the Windrush Generation. Henry spoke of his pride in being the first Conservative parliamentarian of West Indian heritage.[23][24] On 21 July 2020, in a debate on the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, Henry used a question to state "Party politics is shameful" and also used the opportunity to criticise Labour for not working with the Government to "right the wrongs of Windrush".[25]

Henry was elected Co-Chair of the Midlands Engine All-party parliamentary group on 22 July 2020.[26]

In March 2021, Henry apologised after a member of his staff was alleged to have turned up at the home of a blogger to get him to take down an article. Henry said he was unaware the incident had happened until it was published online.[27]

Personal life[]

Darren Henry is married to , who was elected as the Nottinghamshire Police and Crime Commissioner for the Conservative Party in 2021.[28] They have two twin children.[29]

References[]

  1. ^ Brunskill, Ian (19 March 2020). The Times guide to the House of Commons 2019 : the definitive record of Britain's historic 2019 General Election. p. 128. ISBN 978-0-00-839258-1. OCLC 1129682574.
  2. ^ "Broxtowe parliamentary constituency – Election 2019". BBC News Online. BBC. 13 December 2019. Archived from the original on 14 December 2019. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b "Video". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
  4. ^ "Tweet". twitter.com. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
  5. ^ "July 2020: Darren Henry MP and Ren Kapur MBE by CF Armed Forces • A podcast on Anchor". Anchor. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  6. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.darrenhenry.org.uk/campaigns/robert-jenrick-newark-election
  7. ^ "July 2020: Darren Henry MP and Ren Kapur MBE". Event occurs at 11:30:00.
  8. ^ "Conservatives chose Wolverhampton candidate for general election". www.expressandstar.com. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  9. ^ "Food supplier to create 50 jobs with new branch". Daily Echo. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  10. ^ "Wolverhampton North East – 2015 election results". electionresults.parliament.uk. 8 May 2015. Archived from the original on 14 December 2019. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  11. ^ "Shrewton Parish Council minutes - October 2019" (PDF).
  12. ^ "Councillor details – Cllr Darren Henry". cms.wiltshire.gov.uk. Trowbridge: Wiltshire Council. 14 December 2019. Archived from the original on 14 December 2019. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  13. ^ "Councillor details – Cllr Darren Henry". cms.wiltshire.gov.uk. Trowbridge: Wiltshire Council. 12 July 2020.
  14. ^ "Darren Henry - Police & Crime Commissioner Candidate Selection Meeting Information".
  15. ^ Franklin, Dave (26 April 2019). "Jonathon Seed selected to stand in the Police & Crime Commissioner election next year". The Swindonian. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  16. ^ "Coronavirus: Wiltshire and Swindon Police and Crime Commissioner elections cancelled". Swindon Advertiser. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  17. ^ Evelyn, Rupert (9 May 2021). "Exclusive investigation: PCC candidate disbarred over historic driving offence". ITV News. Archived from the original on 10 May 2021. Retrieved 12 May 2021.
  18. ^ "Victoria Borwick: Ex-Boris deputy loses her bid to stand again as Tory MP in Kensington". Evening Standard. 8 July 2019.
  19. ^ "Darren Henry selected as Conservative candidate for Broxtowe". Conservative Home.
  20. ^ "Tory candidate suggests food bank users can't 'manage their budgets' properly". The Independent. 8 December 2019. Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  21. ^ Webber, George Grylls, Esther. "Robert Jenrick ignored civil servants to spend Towns Fund millions on Tory marginals" – via www.thetimes.co.uk.
  22. ^ "Darren Henry MP makes Maiden Speech in the House of Commons This Afternoon". Bramcote Today. 25 June 2020. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  23. ^ Toulson, Gemma (26 June 2020). "Notts MP proud to be first Tory MP of West Indian heritage". Nottingham Post.
  24. ^ "Broxtowe MP Darren Henry makes Maiden Speech in the House of Commons". Darren Henry.
  25. ^ "Darren Henry debate extracts from Windrush Lessons Learned Review (Tue 21st Jul 2020)". www.parallelparliament.co.uk. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  26. ^ "Tweet". twitter.com. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
  27. ^ "Broxtowe MP apologises after claims employee 'intimidated' blogger". BBC News. 17 March 2021. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  28. ^ "Caroline Henry: Notts Police and Crime Commissioner". carolinehenry.co.uk.
  29. ^ "Twins". darrenhenry.org.uk. Retrieved 24 October 2020.

External links[]

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Anna Soubry 		Member of Parliament for Broxtowe
2019–present 		Incumbent
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