Andy McDonald.

One of Labour's more restless backbenchers, Andy McDonald has voted against his own party five times since April — an unusually active rebel record for a 95.9% party-line voter overall. His most striking defection came in April, when he backed a Conservative-led motion to refer Keir Starmer to the Privileges Committee over the Peter Mandelson appointment — a move Labour whipped hard against. He also voted down the Immigration and Asylum Bill at Second Reading in July, opposed planning regulations that strip elected councillors of oversight on smaller housing applications, voted against tuition fee rises, and broke ranks on Crime and Policing Bill amendments he argued bundled civil liberties concerns without a separate vote.

His voting profile reinforces the picture of a left-leaning dissenter on select issues. He sits well to the left of his party on welfare — 67 percentage points more likely to oppose disability benefit cuts and 44 points more likely to oppose benefit cuts generally. He speaks most frequently on economy and jobs, defence, and social care, and has logged 245 contributions across 144 debates, putting his participation rate at 86%, slightly above the Commons average. On civil liberties he scores higher than his party average; on pro-business and tough-on-crime measures, he consistently votes against.

His local profile has been busy. He campaigned visibly for the public inquiry into Teesside's NHS trust — secured in December 2025 — and challenged the Parole Board's release of Middlesbrough murderer Reginald Wilson, meeting the victim's family and raising the case formally with the Justice Secretary. He holds no committee seats. News sentiment over the past 90 days is mixed across 23 articles, with health coverage most positive and culture and crime stories broadly neutral.