John Woodcock, Baron Walney

John Zak Woodcock, Baron Walney (born 14 October 1978) is a British politician and life peer who acts as the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption.

He succeeded John Hutton, the constituency's Labour MP since 1992.

Woodcock was elected to run the London branch of Labour Students, and then worked for the Labour Party on the 2005 general election campaign.

He later worked as an aide to John Hutton from 2005 to 2008 and later as Special Adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

He formerly served as a Labour and then independent Member of Parliament (MP) for Barrow and Furness from 2010 to 2019.

He has sat as a crossbencher in the House of Lords since 2021, previously sitting as a non-affiliated peer.

Prior to his election to Parliament, Woodcock was a political adviser who worked as an aide to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and John Hutton.

He served as a Shadow Transport Minister from 2010 to 2013 under opposition leader Ed Miliband, and briefly as a Shadow Education Minister in 2015 under Harriet Harman.

Woodcock was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Barrow and Furness in the 2010 general election with a majority of 5,208.

On 10 October 2010, only five months after being elected to Parliament, he was named a Shadow Minister for Transport.

From July 2011 to January 2013, Woodcock was Chair of Labour Friends of Israel.

He stepped down from this post for health reasons following an accident in January 2013.

In May 2015, Woodcock was appointed Shadow Minister for Young People, but resigned in September 2015, following the election of Jeremy Corbyn as party leader.

Until 2015, Woodcock was the chair of Progress, a ginger group within the Labour Party, promoting Blairite policies within the party.

Woodcock was a vocal critic of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.

In 2016, Woodcock supported the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen against the Shia Houthis.

Shortly after the announcement of the 2017 general election, Woodcock said he "will not countenance" voting to place Corbyn into Downing Street because of the Labour leader's opposition to the "Trident renewal programme".

In November 2017, a former staff member of Woodcock's complained to the Labour Party that he had sent her inappropriate text messages between 2014 and 2016.

A subject access request by the MP to the party found emails in which officials discussed the need to 'deal with Woodcock' in the run-up to the 2017 election, during which he stated that he would refuse to vote for his party's leader to become British Prime Minister in the event of a Labour victory, citing another case where an MP had been accused of sexual impropriety as an example of how the party could refuse to endorse a candidate.

A senior party figure told The Guardian newspaper that: "There was always a group of people in the leader's office who wanted to hang a couple of our MPs on the right wing of the party out to dry, but wiser heads always prevailed."

They added: "They were really, really going for him".

According to Heather Stewart of The Guardian, the senior figure "did not dispute the sincerity of the allegations against Woodcock" and there was "no suggestion the staff member’s complaint was motivated by the NEC email."

Jeremy Corbyn's spokesman described the email as "a red herring and a smokescreen in regard to a serious case that should have been fully investigated."

He met the king of Saudi Arabia, King Salman, in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, in his role as chair of Labour's backbench foreign affairs committee in 2018.

She reportedly asked for the case to be kept private, but the following year, details were leaked to two newspapers and on 30 April 2018 Woodcock was suspended from membership of the Labour Party and had the party whip withdrawn.

"I do not accept the charge", Woodcock responded.

On 24 June 2018, Woodcock said he would no longer cooperate with the Labour Party investigation, as he believed it to be politically motivated.

Woodcock stated that he would take the General Secretary of the Labour Party to court to force an independent inquiry to take place.

On 18 July 2018, Woodcock resigned from the Labour Party, choosing to sit as an Independent MP for the remainder of the term.

He said that he believed that the party was "no longer the broad church it has always been", but had instead been "taken over by the hard left" under Corbyn's leadership.

On 16 January 2019, Woodcock abstained in the vote of confidence in Theresa May's Conservative government, saying Corbyn was "unfit to lead the country".

On 4 November, he announced he would not be re-standing as an MP in the 2019 general election, due to his partner Isabel Hardman's pregnancy.

On 5 November, the government announced it would be appointing him independent adviser on political violence and disruption.

He stated he would be supporting the Conservative Party in the upcoming election, and urged voters to vote Conservative.

Woodcock was appointed an Independent Adviser on Political Violence and Disruption to the UK Government in November 2020.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed him as UK Trade Envoy to Tanzania in 2021.

Woodcock was born in Sheffield to parents who were teachers, his mother at Rotherham College of Arts and Technology.

His father was a Labour councillor.

He was educated at Tapton School and the University of Edinburgh.

While studying for his degree, he took time out to work as a journalist on The Scotsman, before returning to the university to complete his English and history degree.