Prior to his election to Parliament, Woodcock was a political adviser who worked as an aide to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and John Hutton. He served as a Shadow Transport Minister from 2010 to 2013 under opposition leader Ed Miliband, and briefly as a Shadow Education Minister in 2015 under Harriet Harman. Woodcock was appointed an Independent Adviser on Political Violence and Disruption to the UK Government in November 2020. Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed him as UK Trade Envoy to Tanzania in 2021.
On 10 October 2010, only five months after being elected to Parliament, he was named a Shadow Minister for Transport. He stepped down from this post for health reasons following an accident in January 2013. In May 2015, Woodcock was appointed Shadow Minister for Young People, but resigned in September 2015, following the election of Jeremy Corbyn as party leader.[5][11]
Woodcock was a vocal critic of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. In 2016 he wrote an article for The Daily Mirror in which he called on MP's to remove Corbyn as leader. A spokesperson for Corbyn said Woodcock should "accept the democratic decision" of party members in electing him leader in 2015.[14] Shortly after the announcement of the 2017 general election, Woodcock said he "will not countenance" voting to place Corbyn into Downing Street because of the Labour leader's opposition to the Trident renewal programme.[15][16]
On 16 January 2019, Woodcock abstained in the vote of confidence in Theresa May's Conservative government, saying Corbyn was "unfit to lead the country".[19] On 4 November, he announced he would not be re-standing as an MP in the 2019 general election, due to his partner Isabel Hardman's pregnancy.[20] On 5 November, the government announced it would be appointing him special government envoy to tackle violent extremism with a "particular focus on tackling far-right violent extremism".[21] He stated he would be supporting the Conservative Party in the upcoming election, and urged voters to vote Conservative.[22][23]
Sexual harassment allegation
In November 2017, a former staff member of Woodcock's complained to the Labour Party that he had sent her inappropriate text messages between 2014 and 2016. She reportedly asked for the case to be kept private,[24] but the following year, details were leaked to two newspapers and on 30 April 2018 Woodcock was suspended from membership of the Labour Party and had the party whip withdrawn. Woodcock said "I do not accept that charge but know the complaint must be thoroughly and fairly investigated".[25]
On 24 June 2018, Woodcock said he would no longer cooperate with the Labour Party investigation, as he believed it to be politically motivated. Woodcock stated that he would take the General Secretary of the Labour Party to court to force an independent inquiry to take place.[26] A subject access request by Woodcock to the party found an email in which officials discussed the need to 'deal with Woodcock' in the run-up to the 2017 election, citing another case where an MP had been accused of sexual impropriety as an example of how the party could refuse to endorse a candidate. A senior party figure told The Guardian newspaper that: "There was always a group of people in the leader's office who wanted to hang a couple of our MPs on the right wing of the party out to dry, but wiser heads always prevailed." They added: "They were really, really going for him". According to Heather Stewart of The Guardian, the senior figure "did not dispute the sincerity of the allegations against Woodcock" and there was "no suggestion the staff member’s complaint was motivated by the NEC email." Jeremy Corbyn's spokesman described the email as "a red herring and a smokescreen in regard to a serious case that should have been fully investigated."[27]
Labour Party resignation
On 18 July 2018, Woodcock resigned from the Labour Party, choosing to sit as an Independent MP for the remainder of the term. He said that he believed that the party was "no longer the broad church it has always been", but had instead been "taken over by the hard left" under Corbyn's leadership.[28] Woodcock further called Corbyn "a clear risk to UK national security", and criticised what he saw as the party's tacit endorsement of antisemitism and its failure to provide an independent investigator to rule on his disciplinary case, which he claimed was being "manipulated for factional purposes" within the party.[28][29] Labour rejected all accusations of bias against Woodcock, arguing that the process is the same for all similar cases.[28][29] He has since claimed that he pressed Parliament's independent grievance system to accept non-recent complaints so that his case could be heard.[30]
Woodcock was appointed by the UK Government as an Independent Adviser on Political Violence and Disruption in November 2020.[34] In the unpaid role, he was commissioned to conduct a review on the subject matter and present it to the Prime Minister and Home Secretary prior to publication.
In November 2023, Woodcock advocated giving police the power to ban pro-Palestinian protests on the streets of Britain if they were deemed to contribute to an atmosphere of intimidation against Jews. He said he would be updating his review to include "looking at the threshold for the police to ban a march".[35]
In May 2024, it was revealed that Woodcock would recommend banning groups like Palestine Action and Just Stop Oil, in an upcoming report. This could involve restricting their right to assembly and ability to fundraise.[36] He was criticised by civil liberties campaigners and climate groups because of his positions as a lobbyist for arms and fossil fuel industry groups.[37] Political organisation Momentum called Woodcock's report "a manifesto for a police state".[38]
Other work
In April 2020, Woodcock was named as part of a consortium, led by Robbie Gibb and including William Shawcross and John Ware, that put in a bid to purchase the assets of The Jewish Chronicle.[39]The Jewish Chronicle chairman Alan Jacobs criticised the offer's anonymity, saying "A bid for the Jewish Chronicle using money from an unidentified source and fronted by a group of individuals who refuse to tell the world anything of their plans looks like a shameful attempt to hijack the world's oldest Jewish newspaper."[40] The bid was successful.[41] Woodcock later confirmed to The Times that he had no involvement in "any formal structure" of the company after helping to save it from liquidation: "The priority at the time was to ensure that the JC could move into a more financially stable position [and] I was pleased to support them in that."[42]
Boris Johnson appointed him as the UK's Trade Envoy to Tanzania in August 2021.[43]
He holds a number of paid positions as an adviser for lobbying and consultancy companies.[44] He is paid chair of the Purpose Defence Coalition, members of which include arms manufacturer Leonardo, which has "extensive links" to Israel’s military.[45] He is paid chair of the Purpose Business Coalition, members of which include Leonardo and oil company BP. He is paid senior adviser to Rud Pedersen, a lobbying company with expertise in security and defence, which has oil and gas companies Glencore and Enwell Energy as clients.[46] The groups Good Law Project and Compassion in Politics made an official complaint to the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards, stating that Woodcock "has a commercial interest in organisations whose clients have been targeted by the very protesters whose activities he seeks to ban".[46]Plan B and Palestine Action also questioned Woodcock’s independence.[45] Walney announced the complaint had been dismissed [47]
Woodcock began a relationship with the journalist, and Assistant Editor of The Spectator, Isabel Hardman in summer 2016.[7][50] In November 2019, Woodcock announced Hardman was pregnant;[20] she gave birth to their son on 12 May 2020.[51] The couple married on 30 July 2021 in a small ceremony at Barrow-in-Furness's registry office.[52]
^Farber, Charlie Parker, Alex (24 September 2024). "Who owns The Jewish Chronicle? Why the mystery made writers quit". www.thetimes.com. Retrieved 24 September 2024. Walney also confirmed that he has had no involvement in 'any formal structure' of the company since helping to save it from liquidation, though he did not comment about its ownership or news agenda. He said: 'The priority at the time was to ensure that the JC could move into a more financially stable position [and] I was pleased to support them in that.'{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)