Richard Burgon has represented Leeds East since 2015, succeeding George Mudie, and was reelected in 2024 with 18,610 votes and a majority of 11,265 (38.6 percent). A member of the Socialist Campaign Group, he is one of Labour's most visible left wing backbenchers.

Born in Leeds in September 1980 with Irish roots and a mining family behind him, his aunt was active in Women Against Pit Closures and his uncle Colin Burgon was Labour MP for Elmet from 1997 to 2010. The first in his family to attend university, he read English Literature at St John's College, Cambridge, chaired the Cambridge University Labour Club, then qualified as a solicitor in 2006 and spent ten years at Thompsons Solicitors in Leeds representing trade union members in unfair dismissal and discrimination cases. He is not simply a trade union solicitor: he is a Cambridge English graduate from a mining family with an MP uncle who became one.

Under Corbyn he was appointed Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury in 2015. When the shadow cabinet emptied in the June 2016 mass resignations against Corbyn's leadership, Burgon stayed and was promoted to Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor, a post he held until Starmer became leader in April 2020. In the 2020 deputy leadership election he came last of four candidates, running on a platform that included mandatory reselection of MPs.

The "Zionism is the enemy of peace" episode must be precisely stated. In 2019 a video emerged of Burgon making the remark at a meeting, having previously told journalists he had "certainly not" said it. The video proved otherwise. For a politician whose brand is moral clarity and straight talking, being caught in a specific denial disproven by video is more damaging than the original statement.

In July 2024 he was one of seven Labour MPs who had the whip withdrawn for voting to scrap the two child benefit cap, and sat as an independent for about seven months. In February 2025 the whip was restored to four of the seven, including Burgon; three others (John McDonnell, Apsana Begum and Zarah Sultana) remain suspended. He has 25 whipped rebellions across 441 divisions, one of the highest rebellion rates in the entire Parliamentary Labour Party.

Burgon's strengths include a Cambridge education as a first generation university student, ten years of employment law practice, nearly four years as Shadow Justice Secretary, an MP uncle providing political family grounding, 25 rebellions demonstrating ideological consistency, and a safe majority. His weaknesses include the Zionism denial episode permanently damaging his credibility on straight talking, last place in the deputy leadership, a promotion to Shadow Justice that came only because others resigned, the two child cap suspension, no legislative achievement in a decade, and a rebellion record that guarantees permanent exclusion from any Starmer led government. At 45, with a safe seat and the SCG, he will remain one of Labour's most visible left wing backbenchers. Whether that visibility ever converts to influence again depends on who leads the party next.