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Oona Tamsyn King (born October 22, 1967, in Sheffield) is an English politician.

She was Member of Parliament (MP) for Bethnal Green & Bow from 1997 until the 2005 election. She is a member of the Labour Party.

Early life

King, who is Black and Jewish, was born in 1967 to a Jewish mother (Hazel), and the U.S.-born civil rights activist Preston King; she was educated in Chalk Farm, London.

King received a joint degree in Politics from the University of York and the University of California, Berkeley.

Political life

King joined the Labour Party at the age of 14.

Before becoming an MP, King was on the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, and worked as a political assistant to Glyn Ford MEP, the Labour Party Leader in the European Parliament, and later Glenys Kinnock MEP.

She was selected to represent the seat of Bethnal Green & Bow early in 1997. Peter Shore had announced his retirement early but faction fighting in the Constituency Labour Party led to party headquarters delaying the selection and imposing its own shortlist; some leading competitors from the local Bangladeshi community were not included.

1997 election to Parliament

By winning the seat in 1997, King became only the second black woman to be elected as member of Parliament, the first being Diane Abbott.

She has been selected as one of 100 Great Black Britons for this achievement.

In her maiden speech of July 5 1997, King highlighted the influence that her and her parents' ethnic background had:

For me, racism is not an academic point. My father is black and my mother is Jewish. As a child in Newcastle, my mother was lined up against a wall and stoned because, as her schoolmates put it, she, as a Jew, was responsible for the death of their Lord... I have also been called names such as yid, nigger, wog, half-caste and mongrel. Those are unparliamentary terms, but I hope that my background can be a bridge between two cultures.

Iraq

King supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which was controversial for the constituency's large Muslim population.

This led to the RESPECT Coalition's George Galloway, a leader of the Stop the War Coalition, standing against her at the 2005 general election. This challenge was one of the media highlights of the election .

Loss of 2005 election

The campaign was beset by tensions and scuffles.

King was targeted by protesters, who slashed the tyres on her car, pelted her with eggs and vegetables when she attended a memorial for Jewish Holocaust war dead, and made threats. Commenting on her after the pelting, a young Muslim man from the area said: "We all hate her. She comes here with her Jewish friends who are killing our people."

King said the fact that her mother was Jewish had come up repeatedly, "in a quite disturbing way. As a kid it was always 'oi, you nigger,' 'you wog' and all the rest of it, and now it was 'yids,' 'you Jewish bitch, get out of here,' all of that sort of stuff."

Both she and Galloway requested police protection. Together with Galloway, she made a plea for calm and restraint amongst local people, though she said: "I have to say it has not been helped by some of the language used by Respect. Extremism breeds extremism."

King said of Galloway, "What makes me sick is that when I come across someone who is guilty of genocide, I do not get on a plane and go to Baghdad and grovel at his feet."

Galloway had responded to claims of racism by noting his concern about "the deaths of many people in Iraq with blacker faces than hers." .

King lost the seat to Galloway by a narrow margin of 823 votes. A request for a recount by King and her agent was denied by the chief counting official.

After the 2005 election

King had said that she would remain in Bethnal Green & Bow with her constituency office funded from the GMB trade union, attempting to act as an unofficial MP.

However, she is now pursuing a career in the media, and has said: "I wanted to be an MP all my life, and when it didn't work, I thought, well then, I'll just have to go down a different path."

Quotations

• More 4 segment on her ethnicity, "People say your mother is Jewish and your father African-American is interesting. Also my grand-mother is from Glasgow."

• April 2006, essay for the BBC programme This Week:

  Multiculturalism hasn't failed; it's a statement of fact. We live together, side by side in this country very well, and far better than most. But to neglect any community is a recipe for disaster. To ensure that disaster doesn't come in the shape of the BNP, then politicians must wake up to the concerns of the white working class. Fast.

She has also been on This Week, the Daily Politics and a chanel five talent show

Miscellaneous

• King's husband, Tiberio Santomarco, is from Italy.
• Her aunt is Miriam Stoppard.
• King speaks Italian and French, in addition to English.

See also

• List of British Jews

External links

• George Galloway interview after beating Oona King May 2005 Elections
• Oona King official site
• Guardian Politics Ask Aristotle - Oona King
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Oona King MP
• - Essay for BBC1's This Week
• 100 Great Black Britons - Oona King MP
• Israel can halt this now, Oona King, The Guardian, June 12, 2003
• Shock win for Galloway in London, BBC, 6 May, 2005
• Post election Oona King interview, audio, Today programme, BBC Radio 4, May 11 2005
• The Exile And His Daughter - Preston King, scholar, author, draft evader, 40 years in waiting for a pardon, Essence Magazine, February 2001
• Q: Did anti-semitism cost you the election? A: Definitely. There was Iraq, of course, but it was particularly being Jewish, Emma Brockes talks to former Labour MP Oona King, The Guardian, September 12, 2005

References

1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/4931568.stm

• 1967 births
• Living people
• Labour MPs (UK)
• English Jews
• Members of the United Kingdom Parliament from English constituencies
• British female MPs
• University of York alumni
• UK MPs 1997-2001
• UK MPs 2001-2005
• Black Jews