1. John Eugene Joseph Dromey was a British politician and trade unionist who served as Member of Parliament for Birmingham Erdington from 2010 to 2022.
28 Facts About Jack Dromey
1. 2.
John Eugene Joseph Jack Dromey was born on 29 September 1948 to Irish parents in Brent, Middlesex.
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Jack Dromey built a reputation as an effective speaker and organiser in the trade union movement and through his involvement with Brent Trades Council and the Greater London Association of Trades Councils, who sent him as a delegate to the South East Regional Council of the Trades Union Congress.
4.
Jack Dromey was appointed deputy general secretary of the TGWU, having lost the 2003 election for general secretary to Tony Woodley by a wide margin.
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Jack Dromey first sought to stand for Labour at the 1997 general election but failed to make the shortlist for the Pontefract and Castleford constituency.
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Jack Dromey again sought a safe seat in 2007, when there were plans for a general election to be called.
7.
The chair of Leyton and Wanstead Constituency Labour Party said he would be "somewhat aggrieved" were Jack Dromey selected and Jack Dromey's wife Harriet Harman had campaigned for all-women shortlists in safe seats.
8.
The party's candidates for the constituency were due to be announced in November 2009, though this was delayed for at least two months, with The Daily Telegraph alleging that the announcement was going to be made at the last possible minute so Jack Dromey could be imposed as the candidate using emergency rules.
9.
On 27 February 2010, it was confirmed that Jack Dromey had been selected as the Labour Party candidate for Birmingham Erdington.
10.
Jack Dromey joined the Labour frontbench, under leader Ed Miliband, as Shadow Minister for Housing from 2010 until 2013 when he became Shadow Minister for Policing.
11.
Jack Dromey remained in post following Jeremy Corbyn's election as leader until his resignation in June 2016, but returned to the frontbench as Shadow Minister for Labour in October 2016.
12.
Jack Dromey was appointed Shadow Minister for Pensions in 2018, and continued to serve in the role under Keir Starmer until 2021, when he joined the shadow Cabinet Office team as Shadow Paymaster General.
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Jack Dromey was later appointed Shadow Immigration minister in the December reshuffle, serving in the role for a month before his sudden death in January 2022.
14.
In November 2011, John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, launched an investigation into allegations that Jack Dromey had failed to declare thousands of pounds in salary.
15.
Jack Dromey supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 Labour leadership election.
16.
Jack Dromey retained his seat in the 2019 general election; although his majority fell to ten percentage points, he won more than 50 per cent of the vote.
17.
In January 2021, Jack Dromey moved to the Shadow Cabinet Office team, led by Rachel Reeves, as Shadow Paymaster General.
18.
Jack Dromey was a member of the executive committee of the National Council for Civil Liberties in the 1970s during a period when the Paedophile Information Exchange had taken out corporate membership of NCCL.
19.
Jack Dromey denied supporting PIE or its aims, stating that he actively opposed the links between the two groups and voted for the expulsion of the group at the NCCL Annual General Meeting.
20.
Jack Dromey stated publicly that neither he nor Labour's elected National Executive Committee chairman, Sir Jeremy Beecham, had knowledge of or involvement in the loans, and that he had become aware of them when he read about them in the newspapers.
21.
Jack Dromey stated that he was regularly consulted about conventional bank loans.
22.
Jack Dromey's report was discussed by the NEC on 21 March 2006.
23.
Jack Dromey again claimed to know nothing of the donations, with critics wondering why he had not examined the issue more closely.
24.
Jack Dromey married Harriet Harman in 1982 in the Borough of Brent, after meeting her on the picket line of the Grunwick dispute in 1977; Harman was legal advisor to the Grunwick Strike Committee.
25.
Jack Dromey served for ten years on the executive of the National Council for Civil Liberties, a pressure group for which Harman worked as legal officer.
26.
Jack Dromey, whose parents were from counties Cork and Tipperary, was a strong supporter of Irish causes in Parliament and in his Birmingham constituency, and a regular attender at the city's yearly St Patrick's Day parades.
27.
Jack Dromey died from heart failure at his flat in Birmingham on 7 January 2022, at the age of 73.
28.
Jack Dromey's funeral was held on 31 January 2022 at St Margaret's Church, Westminster.