Claude Moraes[1] is a Member of the European Parliament for the Labour Party. Claude Moraes is the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in Europe (the European Parliamentary Labour Party, or EPLP) one of eight MEPs representing London.
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Moraes grew up in Scotland, having moved to the United Kingdom with his parents at the age of six from India. He studied Scots law and English Law, Administrative Law and International Law at the University of Dundee, London University (Birkbeck College) and the London School of Economics.
Prior to holding elected office, he attained a national profile as the director of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants - a UK based independent legal NGO specialising in refugee and migration issues. Moraes was also a Commissioner for Racial Equality and became a regular media commentator and campaigner on migration issues.
He also helped organise legal challenges in the High Court, Court of Appeal, and in Europe. He was also House of Commons adviser to John Reid MP and Paul Boateng MP, and was a national officer at the TUC and a representative to the European TUC. He has written widely on migration and human rights issues and is a co-author of the Politics of Migration (Blackwells).
He was first elected to the European Parliament in 1999, one of the first Asian MEPs elected to the European Parliament and London's first ethnic minority MEP. He was re-elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 2004. In 2009, he was number one on the London list of Labour candidates in the European Parliamentary elections, being re-elected to the European Parliament for the third time. Shortly after this, Moraes was elected a Spokesperson for the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament.
In the European Parliament, Moraes is the Labour spokesperson on Justice and Home Affairs, Substitute Member of the Internal Market Committee, Vice-President of the Delegation for relations with the Arab Peninsula, Vice President of Anti-Racism & Diversity Intergroup and Co-President of the Intergroup on Ageing.
Moraes has written for national newspapers including the Independent, Guardian and FT and was a columnist on Tribune magazine. He has appeared regularly on national TV and radio including CNN, France 24, BBC Newsnight, the Today Programme, BBC World, Radio 5, and LBC, and on many documentaries mainly on the issues of migration, refugee matters, European and UK politics and home affairs.
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