page_title: Rosena Allin-Khan
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: Rosena Allin-Khan / Political career
caption_attribution_description: English: Rosena Allin-Khan speaking at the 2020 Labour Party deputy leadership election hustings in Bristol on the afternoon of Saturday 1 February 2020, in the Ashton Gate Stadium Lansdown Stand.
context_page_description: Rosena Chantelle Allin-Khan is a British politician and doctor who has served as Member of Parliament for Tooting since the 2016 by-election, and Shadow Minister for Mental Health since 2020. She stood as a candidate for the 2020 Labour Party deputy leadership election, ultimately coming second to Angela Rayner. She was previously Shadow Minister for Sport between October 2016 and January 2020.
context_section_description: Allin-Khan was a councillor on Wandsworth Council for Bedford ward in Balham, and served as deputy leader of the council's Labour group.
  Allin-Khan was selected as the Labour Party candidate for the Tooting constituency, after the seat became vacant in May 2016 due to the sitting MP, Sadiq Khan's resigning the seat, after he had won that year's London mayoral election.
  Allin-Khan's by-election campaign emphasised her local, working-class roots and Polish-Pakistani heritage. When the election results were announced, Allin-Khan read a tribute to Jo Cox, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen who was murdered on the day of the by-election.
  She campaigned to remain in the EU during the 2016 Brexit referendum, and later campaigned for a second referendum on the issue.
  In October 2016, Allin-Khan was appointed Shadow Minister for Sport. While in this position, she pledged to introduce safe standing at football matches in the UK from the 2020/21 season, if Labour won the next election. She further campaigned to have England's semi-final match against Croatia during the 2018 World Cup to be shown on big screens in public, and also claimed that the St George's Flag had become associated with the far-right, stating that the success of England in the World Cup had helped reclaim the flag for the wider population.
  Allin-Khan retained her seat in the 2017 general election and the 2019 general election.
  Allin-Khan stood as a candidate in the 2020 Labour Party deputy leadership election. During the campaign, she argued that she would be a unifying candidate, and highlighted her working-class background, and background as a doctor. She ultimately received 77,351 (16.8%) of first preference votes, and 113,858 (26.1%) in the final round, coming second to Angela Rayner.
  She was appointed as Shadow Minister for Mental Health in Keir Starmer's first shadow cabinet, shadowing Nadine Dorries. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in the UK, she has been working 12-hour shifts at St George's Hospital in Tooting, as well as her job as an MP and a shadow minister. She also called for more mental health support to NHS staff during the pandemic, stating that there was a "rise in suicides, self-harm and suicidal ideation among frontline NHS and care staff" due to "a lack of PPE, an increased workload ... and witnessing more patients die". She also criticised the UK Government for being too slow in acting, saying that it should have brought in measures such as the lockdown and widespread testing sooner.
caption: Allin-Khan speaking at a hustings during the deputy leadership campaign in February 2020
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