page_title: Owen Smith
hierarchical_section_title: Owen Smith
caption_attribution_description: English: Official portrait of Owen Smith
context_page_description: Owen Smith is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Pontypridd from 2010 to 2019.
  Before being elected to Parliament, Smith worked as a radio and television producer for the BBC, as a special adviser for Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy, and as a political lobbyist for Pfizer. Smith went on to serve as Shadow Welsh Secretary under Ed Miliband from 2012 until 2015, and then as Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary under Jeremy Corbyn from 2015 until he resigned in June 2016. On 13 July 2016, he contested the leadership of the Labour Party and was defeated. After the 2017 general election, Corbyn appointed Smith as Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He was sacked from this post on 23 March 2018 after he publicly called for a referendum on the final Brexit deal, a position that was against Labour party policy of the time.
  He has been described as being on the soft left of the Labour Party, with Kevin Maguire of the Daily Mirror noting Smith's politics "largely overlap when it comes to policy" with Corbyn's.
context_section_description: Owen Smith  (born 2 May 1970) is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Pontypridd from 2010 to 2019.
  Before being elected to Parliament, Smith worked as a radio and television producer for the BBC, as a special adviser for Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy, and as a political lobbyist for Pfizer. Smith went on to serve as Shadow Welsh Secretary under Ed Miliband from 2012 until 2015, and then as Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary under Jeremy Corbyn from 2015 until he resigned in June 2016. On 13 July 2016, he contested the leadership of the Labour Party and was defeated. After the 2017 general election, Corbyn appointed Smith as Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He was sacked from this post on 23 March 2018 after he publicly called for a referendum on the final Brexit deal, a position that was against Labour party policy of the time (the party adopted this position the following year).
  He has been described as being on the soft left of the Labour Party, with Kevin Maguire of the Daily Mirror noting Smith's politics "largely overlap when it comes to policy" with Corbyn's.
caption: Smith in 2017
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