Introduction
Claude Ajit Moraes OBE (born 22 October 1965) is a British Labour Party politician and campaigner, who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for London between 1999 and the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020. He is former Vice President of the S&D Group in the European Parliament. He was Chair of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in the European Parliament.
Background
Claude Moraes is of Indian descent. He was born in Aden (State of Aden), and grew up in Scotland, having moved to Dundee with his parents at the age of four from India. His parents are Indian Catholics from Karnataka (Mangalore) and Mumbai respectively. He attended the state St Modan's High School in Stirling, and studied law at the University of Dundee, government at Birkbeck, University of London and international law at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Previous work
After leaving Scotland, Moraes settled in East London, living and volunteering at Toynbee Hall, an anti-poverty charity, where he was later a Council Member.
He was appointed House of Commons researcher to MPs John Reid and Paul Boateng following the 1987 General Electionand became a national officer at the Trades Union Congress in 1989. During this period, he was also a representative to the European Trade Union Confederation.
Prior to becoming an MEP, Moraes attracted attention as director of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, a UK-based independent legal protection NGO founded in 1967 specialising in refugee and migration issues. At JCWI he helped organise key legal challenges in the UK and European Courts succeeding Dame Anne Owers as director in 1992. At this time he was also executive secretary to the Immigrants' Aid Trust. Moraes was appointed a Commissioner at the Commission for Racial Equality for the period 1997-2002and he was also an elected Council member of Liberty during this period.
He has campaigned and written regularly on migration, refugee, human rights and privacy/digital issues.
He contested the parliamentary constituency of Harrow West in the 1992 General Election, placing second with 22.5% of the vote.
Member of the European Parliament, 1999–2020
He was first elected to the European Parliament in the 1999 European elections, one of the first South Asian (Indian) origin MEPs elected to the European Parliament and London's first ethnic minority MEP. He was re-elected to the European Parliament at number one on the Labour Party list 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. He led the London list going into the 2014 European elections and was elected for a fourth term.
Moraes was the elected Spokesperson for the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs from 2009 to 2014. His Parliamentary legislative reports include the Protection of Seasonal Workers in the EU (2014) and Blue Card (Migration) Directive (Revision) (2017) and he was Rapporteur for the European Asylum Support Agency (2019).
In 2013 Moraes was appointed Rapporteur for the Parliament Inquiry into Mass Surveillance following the leaks from Edward Snowden. The Inquiry and his Report "US NSA surveillance programmes, surveillance bodies in various Member States and their impact on EU citizens' fundamental rights and on transatlantic cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs" was voted by the EP in March 2014 and is sometimes referred to as the Parliament's "European Digital Bill of Rights" as it looks at the future of key data, human rights and commercial priorities for the EU in the area of data protection, surveillance, governance of the internet, cybercrime, media freedom, scrutiny, anti-terrorism and technology.
In July 2014 Moraes was elected Chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE Committee).
Following the UK Referendum decision in 2016, he became a member of the European Parliament's Brexit Steering Committee from its formation until July 2019. He advised on the Parliament's position on the Withdrawal Agreement primarily in the areas of EU citizens rights, the rights of UK citizens in the EU, security union and law enforcement, data protection, data adequacy and free movement.
In 2018 as part of his Committee's increasing role in the external & humanitarian aspects of the refugee crisis, he led delegations to Libya, Niger, Lebanon and the Greek "hotspots" to improve the European Parliament's response.
Also in 2018 he was appointed Standing Rapporteur for the European Parliament consent procedure relating to the European Commission's decision to directly invoke Article 7 of the EU Treaties for the first time into alleged rule of law breaches by the Polish government. He led all-party European Parliament rule of law delegations that year to both Poland and also Slovakia following the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak.
In May 2019, Claude Moraes stood for the Labour Party at the number one position in the London constituency and was reelected in the 2019 European Elections.
Honours and recognition
In 2011 Moraes was Dod's and the European Parliament Magazine's 'MEP of the Year' for his work on Justice and Civil Liberties. In 2016 he was named as one of Politico Magazine's "40 MEPs Who Actually Matter". In 2017 the organisation Vote Watch Europe listed him as "the most influential" UK MEP and sixth most influential MEP in the European Parliament. In November 2019 along with MPs Alberto Costa and Stuart McDonald he was given the Ambassador award for his work on EU citizens rights by the organisation the3million. Moraes was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours.