| Josh Simons | |
| Honorific-Suffix: | MP |
| Office: | Member of Parliament for Makerfield |
| Term Start: | 4 July 2024 |
| Predecessor: | Yvonne Fovargue |
| Majority: | 5,399 (13.4%) |
| Birth Date: | 1993 7, df=y |
| Party: | Labour |
| Alma Mater: | St John's College, Cambridge (BA) Harvard University (PhD) |
Josh Simons (born 24 July 1993)[1] [2] is a British Labour Party politician serving as Member of Parliament for Makerfield since 2024.
Simons was born to a Jewish father from Bury, Greater Manchester. He was educated at The Perse School in Cambridge.[3]
Simons was an undergraduate at St John's College, Cambridge, where he studied for a Bachelor of Arts in Social and Political Sciences. Supervised by Helen Thompson, he graduated at the top of his year in 2015 with a starred double first.[4] He was an editor of the student newspapers Varsity and The Tab.
Simons worked at Cambridge University as a research assistant to Amartya Sen from 2014 until 2015, when he moved to the Institute of Public Policy Research.
He became a policy adviser to the Leader of the Opposition in 2015, following Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour Leader. Simons moved from the Leader's Office to London Labour in 2016, and returned to Cambridge as a research assistant to Helen Thompson later in the year.
Simons has cited "persistent failure" to tackle antisemitism for his resignation from Corbyn's office.[5] He later contributed to the Equality and Human Rights Commission's investigation into Labour antisemitism.
Simons studied for a doctorate in Government, Political Theory and Political Science at Harvard University from 2016 to 2021. His doctorate was supervised by academics including Michael Sandel and Richard Tuck, and adapted into his book Algorithms for the People: Democracy in the Age of AI.[6] [7] Simons continued at Harvard as a postdoctoral fellow.
He was a visiting research scientist at Facebook from 2018 to 2022, developing the company's ethics strategy for artificial intelligence. He co-founded the Civic Power Fund in 2019, which fundraises to provide grants for community organisations.
Simons has been a fellow at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, the Institute for the Future of Work, and New America. He has also been a trustee of the New Economics Foundation and Engage Britain, and a governor of the NHS Northern Care Alliance.
Simons stood as a Labour and Co-operative candidate in the 2021 Bury Council election, finishing second-place to the Conservative candidate in Church ward.[8]
Simons was director of the think tank Labour Together from 2022 until his Parliamentary selection in 2024.[9]
Simons was elected as MP for Makerfield at the 2024 general election.[10] He was selected by Labour's National Executive Committee several weeks before the election, after Yvonne Fovargue announced that she wouldn't seek re-election.[11]
Simons was a founding member of the Labour Growth Group.[12]
Simons is married with two children, and met his wife at Harvard University.