Darren Henry

Henry was born in Bedford, England, to a Jamaican-born father Harry. His mother Gloria was from Trinidad.[3] During his youth, Henry attended Rushmoor School. [4] Prior to entering politics, Henry served in the Royal Air Force.[3]

In early 2014, Henry joined the Conservatives, noting that whilst campaigning was possible in military service it had not occurred to him to do so up until this point. [5]

During Henry's first year of membership, he aided Robert Jenrick in his campaign to win the 2014 Newark by-election.[6]

After a few months of membership, he sought nomination to be the official Conservative seat in North West Hampshire. He was shortlisted, but lost to former Deputy Mayor of London, Kit Malthouse.[7]

In the 2015 general election he was selected as the Conservative candidate for Wolverhampton North East, in the West Midlands.[8] He was also employed as General Manager at Harvest Fine Foods.[9] He came second to Labour's Emma Reynolds, seeing a decline of 4.4% in the Conservative vote share.[10]

Henry served as a Parish councillor in Shrewton, Wiltshire before resigning in September 2019.[11]

Henry was also a Wiltshire Unitary Councillor from May 2017 until January 2020.[12][13] As Henry assumed office as Member of Parliament for Broxtowe on 12 December 2019, this meant that Henry briefly had a dual mandate for both Wiltshire and Broxtowe.

In early 2019, Henry was shortlisted to be Police and Crime Commissioner for Swindon and Wiltshire.[14] He lost the selection to Jonathon Seed in April 2019.[15] The May 2020 Police and Crime Commissioner election has since been postponed until 2021.[16]

In summer 2019, he was shortlisted, along with Tony Devenish and Felicity Buchan, for the ultra-marginal West London seat of Kensington. He failed to be selected.[17]

Following this, he was selected as the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Broxtowe in September 2019.[18]

At a 2019 general election hustings in Broxtowe, Henry said that he might introduce a private member's bill for a ban on payday loans advertising, and suggested that food bank users needed help understanding money and budgeting. At the same hustings he stated; "When people are really, really down, and when people haven't got the money, one of the things they can look to do is to get a payday loan or something like that." Reaction to this speech was audibly negative.[19]

During the election, Henry leveraged an existing relationship with Robert Jenrick to have Jenrick commit to funding Stapleford (a ward within Broxtowe) with £25 million, but only if Henry won the seat and the Conservative party won a majority.[20]

In his maiden speech made on 25 June 2020,[21] which was also in the week marking 72 years since the arrival of the Windrush generation to the UK, Henry spoke negatively of Labour for its representation of immigrants and those of the Windrush Generation. Henry spoke of his pride in being the first Conservative parliamentarian of West Indian heritage.[22][23] On 21 July 2020, in the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, Henry used a question to state "Party Politics is shameful" and also used the opportunity to criticise Labour for not working with the Government to "right the wrongs of Windrush".[24]

Henry was elected Co-Chair of the Midlands Engine All-party parliamentary group on 22 July 2020.[25]

Darren Henry is married to Caroline Henry and has twin children.[26]

• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou