Jonathan Hinder

Jonathan James Hinder (born 3 March 1991) is a British politician and former police officer who has served as the member of Parliament (MP) for Pendle and Clitheroe since 2024. A member of the Labour Party, he is a member of the Red Wall Caucus and a co-founder and leading member of the Blue Labour parliamentary caucus.

Hinder grew up in Downham, Lancashire. He attended Clitheroe Royal Grammar School and Merton College, Oxford before serving in the police force from 2013 to 2022 in London.

In 2022, Hinder left the police force to pursue a career in politics. He joined the Labour Party and in the 2024 general election became the Labour MP for Pendle and Clitheroe after defeating the incumbent Conservative MP Andrew Stephenson. In Parliament, Hinder has campaigned for greater investment into transport and policing. He has called for the Labour Party to abandon liberalism and return to its traditional left-wing, socialist roots with a stricter policy on immigration to reconnect with its main working-class base.

Early life and career

Jonathan James Hinder was born on 3 March 1991. He grew up in Downham and attended Clitheroe Royal Grammar School before he went up to study history and politics at Merton College, Oxford, where he served as JCR President.

After graduating, Hinder joined the police force in London in 2013. He mainly worked in emergency response roles. He also served as the head of the Police Now training academy during this period.

In 2022, Hinder left the police service to pursue a career in politics. In the 2023 Ribble Valley Borough Council election, he stood as a Labour candidate for the ward of St Mary's where he lost to two Liberal Democrat candidates.

Parliamentary career In November 2023, Hinder was selected in a ballot of local Labour members to stand as Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for the Pendle and Clitheroe constituency at the 2024 general election. During the election campaign, Hinder criticised the governing Conservative Party for a decline in public services and promoted Labour's proposed National Care Service, green energy generation and career opportunities for young people. He built support on the campaign trail by holding open forums with local residents where they could ask him questions and share their concerns.

At the general election on 4 July, he was elected as the new member of Parliament (MP) for Pendle and Clitheroe with 16,129 votes, a majority of 902, or 1.9%, over the incumbent Conservative MP Andrew Stephenson. Hinder became the first Labour politician to win the Clitheroe area since the 1945 general election. After his victory, Hinder paid tribute to Stephenson and pledged to "work to improve the lives of every single constituent, whether they voted for me or not".

In his maiden speech, Hinder called for the restoration of the Skipton–Colne Line and "serious investment in infrastructure […] if we are to see small towns in the north of England thrive and prosper". In September 2024, he said he would prioritise the cost-of-living crisis, green investment, improving public transport and improving the NHS and other public services as an MP. In November 2024, he voted in favour of Kim Leadbeater's Assisted Dying Bill at its first reading, explaining that he believed the bill was "sufficiently limited in scope to reduce unnecessary suffering for those who wish to shorten a painful death, without causing undue suffering to others". However, he withdrew his support for the bill at its second reading in May 2025 after a provision requiring approval from the High Court for assisted dying was removed, stating that more modifications had to be made to the bill to once again make it "practicable and safe".

In January 2025, Hinder co-founded the parliamentary caucus of the economically left-wing and socially conservative Blue Labour movement with Dan Carden, David Smith and Jonathan Brash. Hinder has become a leading figure in the caucus and is responsible for booking the venues of its meetings in Parliament. In February, he said the Labour Party had to "reconnect with our working-class base in seats like mine of Pendle and Clitheroe" by pursuing "bold, left-wing economic policies, much lower immigration, a complete rejection of divisive identity politics, and proudly reclaiming our patriotism".

In July 2025, following the Supreme Court decision of For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers, he called for trans women to be excluded from Parkrun, a non-competitive fun run event. The following month, he branded former Conservative minister and current Reform UK member Ann Widdecombe as "woke right" after she asked Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch to clarify her party's position on placing transgender inmates in prisons by gender.

In May 2026, amid the 2026 Labour Party leadership crisis, Hinder - after having only been an MP for 22 months - called upon Keir Starmer to resign as Prime Minister. Appearing on BBC Newsnight on 11 May, Hinder described a speech made by Starmer that morning as "tone deaf" and "downright insulting", due to its focus on Brexit following poor performance in the recent local elections. When questioned by the Newsnight host, Victoria Derbyshire, as to who should replace Starmer, Hinder refused to answer.

Political views Ideologically, Hinder is a leading member of the Blue Labour parliamentary caucus of economically left-wing and socially conservative Labour MPs. He has criticised what he sees as the "hyper-liberal" ideology of the Labour Party and in 2025 said the party faced an "existential threat" because it abandoned its traditional left-wing socialist platform for liberalism and pro-immigration policies, after the party's traditional working-class voting base appeared to shift towards Reform UK over high immigration. He has argued that by adopting a stricter policy on immigration and moving back to the left, Labour would remove the appeal of challengers like Reform UK and reconnect the party to its traditional working-class base. and that he would not be disappointed, during a speech with conservative group Civic Future. He also called for the government to implement an annual cap on accepting refugees and to reform the asylum system to remove "every legal obstacle" preventing the removal of illegal boats crossing the English channel, including withdrawal from the European Convention of Human Rights if necessary. In April 2025, he said there needed to be a deterrent against illegal immigration, but criticised the Rwanda asylum plan as "chaotic". He also criticised the high numbers of international students at British universities and said that he was "not that disappointed" if reducing international student numbers would lead to the bankruptcy of universities which depended on international fees, adding that the nation should not have "anywhere near as many universities" which he described as "popping out degrees of dubious quality, of dubious value to the economy". He has supported the Labour government's planned reforms to reduce immigration and the government's review of human rights legislation related to illegal immigration. but also cautioned against branding Reform UK policies as racist. Hinder has criticised the "Treasury Orthodoxy" and a lack of intervention from the government. In 2025, he said the government had "given away much of its decision-making power" to unelected quangos such as NHS England, the Bank of England and the Office of Budget Responsibility, which he criticised for causing a lack of democratic accountability on economic policy. He has criticised the privatisation of public services and industries since the 1980s, including water, steel, rail, mail and energy, to private firms, "any of them based overseas. Their priority purely being profit". Infrastructure Since his election to Parliament, Hinder has campaigned for greater investment into transport and policing services and the restoration of the Skipton–Colne Line in particular. He dedicated his maiden speech to this issue, explaining that the nation needed "serious investment in infrastructure, such as by reinstating the short rail link between Colne in Lancashire and Skipton in North Yorkshire, if we are to see small towns in the north of England thrive and prosper". stating that it was "dangerous gender madness" and a "drug experiment" stating that "will put them on the path to sterilisation, lack of sexual function, and needing medical treatment for life".

Personal life Hinder lives in Clitheroe. He is a fan of football and cricket.