New Faces in Parliament 2.
Hexham
Official Portrait Joseph Morris ©House of Commons/Roger Harris released under an Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) licence no changes made to image
The Parliamentary Constituency of Hexham is the second largest in England, and was continuously represented by Conservative and Unionist MPs for a hundred years until 2024, when it was won for Labour by Joe Morris. How did a local lad become Hexham’s first ever Labour MP?
Joe describes growing up in a political family and although his father worked for the BBC and maintained scrupulous impartiality, his mother held left wing views. He joined the Labour Party before his 18th birthday, and was immediately made Youth Officer, as he was the youngest member by some distance. On leaving the QE High School in Hexham, Joe won a place at Mansfield College, Oxford, where the Principal was Helena Kennedy, Scottish barrister and now Labour member of the House of Lords. Apart from studying History and Politics, Joe spent most of his time at Oxford as Welfare Officer and Head of the College student body. On leaving Oxford, Joe moved back to the North East to work in a call centre, from where he began to plan a career in politics. His experience knocking on doors at the 2010 and 2015 elections in Hexham was not uniformly positive, noting: “Regional Labour did not regard Hexham as fruitful ground and were inclined to send members to campaign in more promising constituencies”. Despite this, Joe decided to leave the call centre and worked as a volunteer for Labour North. This resulted in a job as assistant to Ian Lavery, then MP for Wansbeck. This was a formative experience: “Although in some respects our views differed, I remain very grateful to Ian for his support and encouragement”. After 12 months, Joe moved to London to work for MPs including members of the Shadow Cabinet.
In a move away from politics, Joe became external affairs director at UK Steel, a trade body dealing with journalists and politicians, but retained his ambition to become Hexham’s first Labour MP. This was facilitated by a subsequent post with Hanbury Strategy, a communications firm who allowed him the time to run for selection in the 2024 election.
Hexham was the only seat Joe ran for selection in, and he was successful but: “My task was to persuade the Labour Party to devote resources to helping me win what had been seen as a hopeless cause!”. He was helped in this by a committed group of local Labour members who shared his belief that unseating the incumbent Conservative MP, Guy Opperman, was possible. Using his Parliamentary contacts, Joe persuaded a number of prominent Labour MPs to visit Hexham. Labour North gave Joe a target to knock on the doors of 500 voters per week in the lead up to the campaign. Drawing on the enthusiasm of local members, by the time Labour North agreed to appoint an organiser to assist with the campaign, Joe and his team were knocking on 1500 doors a week, frequently in the top 10 of constituencies nationally. In July 2024, Joe won the seat by 4,000 out of 52,000 votes, a swing of 15% from the Conservatives, and became Hexham’s first Labour MP.
“It was difficult”, he says of his arrival in Parliament, “not to be in awe of the history and architecture of the place”. He has worked hard, speaking in the chamber more than a hundred times in less than a year. Striking a balance between working in London and a huge, diverse constituency like Hexham has been challenging, but he finds most satisfaction in using his surgeries to assist his constituents, of whatever political stripe, in solving, often longstanding, issues. He hopes that this casework will help to rebuild trust in politics and politicians - he was reminded of the consequences of this loss when he was issued with a panic alarm within a few days of becoming an MP. He is grateful for the support of other, more experienced, local MPs.
Joe says: “ I am proud of the achievements of the Labour Government so far, which include free breakfast clubs and public sector pay rises, but this is the first year of a 5 year project to make Britain a fairer, more prosperous place - with improvements in the rights of renters and employees, and the prospect of a clean energy transformation creating worthwhile jobs in the region to come”.
Joe is now a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department for Health and Social Care, the first rung on the ministerial ladder. Clearly a hardworking, ambitious, savvy individual, will he be Hexham’s first Labour Minister? Or will the electorate decide another change is due in 2029? The Squirrel awaits the outcome with interest.
Michael Clarke