page_title: Maria Eagle
section_title: In opposition
hierarchical_section_title: Maria Eagle / Political career / In opposition
caption_attribution_description: English: Official portrait of Maria Eagle
context_page_description: Maria Eagle is a British Labour Party politician who has served as Member of Parliament for Garston and Halewood, previously Liverpool Garston, since 1997. She was Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice and Government Equalities Office in Gordon Brown's government. She was previously a junior minister at the Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Education and Skills and Northern Ireland Office.
  After the 2010 general election, Eagle became Shadow Solicitor General for England and Wales. She served in the Shadow Cabinets of Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn as Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence and finally Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. She resigned from the Shadow Cabinet in June 2016. Eagle is the twin sister of fellow Labour MP Angela Eagle.
context_section_description: After Labour lost the 2010 general election, Eagle served in interim Labour leader Harriet Harman's frontbench as Shadow Solicitor General for England and Wales and Shadow Justice Minister. In October 2010 Eagle was elected to the Shadow Cabinet of new Labour Party leader Ed Miliband as Shadow Secretary of State for Transport in the Labour Party Shadow Cabinet election. In February 2013, she voted in favour in the House of Commons Second Reading vote on marriage equality in Britain.
  Eagle was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Defence in September 2015 by the newly elected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Eagle said she was surprised by her appointment as she had disagreed with Corbyn's advocacy of unilateral nuclear disarmament and supported the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system. Tasked with leading Labour's defence review, she said she would not rule out the possibility of it recommending unilateral disarmament. However, she described Corbyn commenting he would not countenance using a nuclear deterrent as "unhelpful" to the policy process.
  In January 2016, Eagle was moved to the position of Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. She resigned from the shadow cabinet on 27 June 2016 in the mass resignation of the Shadow Cabinet following the Brexit referendum. She supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 Labour Party leadership election.
  Eagle was re-elected in the 2017 and 2019 general elections. She is a supporter of Labour Friends of Israel.
caption: Eagle in 2017
exif: {}