Chuka Harrison Umunna (; born 17 October 1978) is a British businessman and former politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Streatham from 2010 until 2019. A former member of the Labour Party, he was part of the Shadow Cabinet from 2011 to 2015. He left Labour in February 2019, when he resigned to form The Independent Group, later Change UK, along with six other MPs. Later in 2019, he left Change UK and, after a short time as an independent MP, joined the Liberal Democrats. In the 2019 general election, he failed to be re-elected, and did not return to the House of Commons.
Born in Lambeth to a Nigerian father and English-Irish mother, Umunna was educated at St Dunstan's College, a private school. He then studied law at the University of Manchester and Nottingham Trent University. A teenage member of the Liberal Democrats, he joined the Labour Party in 1997 when the party was styling itself as "New Labour". He worked as a solicitor in the City of London, first for Herbert Smith and then for Rochman Landau, while writing articles for the Compass think tank.
Umunna was selected as Labour's parliamentary candidate for Streatham in 2008, and was elected MP in the 2010 general election. When in parliament, he aligned with the party's "Blue Labour" trend, which rejects neoliberal economics. He sat on the Treasury Select Committee until 2011, when he joined Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. He was re-elected in the 2015 and 2017 general elections. Following Miliband's resignation, Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader in 2015; Umunna was critical of the party leadership and resigned from the Shadow Cabinet to sit as a backbencher.
A supporter of the unsuccessful 2016 referendum campaign to retain UK membership of the European Union, Ummuna campaigned for a referendum on the final deal with the EU. In February 2019, he resigned from Labour and joined The Independent Group, later Change UK. He was its group spokesperson but left in June 2019 to sit as an independent MP following "disappointing" European Parliament election results showing the party had "failed to get a single MEP elected". One week later, Umunna joined the Liberal Democrats and was appointed their Treasury and Business Spokesperson by leader Vince Cable. In August 2019, he was appointed Foreign Affairs, International Development and International Trade Spokesperson by new leader Jo Swinson. He stood for Cities of London and Westminster in the 2019 general election but lost to Nickie Aiken of the Conservatives.
In 2021, Umunna joined JPMorgan Chase as Managing Director of its Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) advisory group in London. In July 2024, he was promoted to Global Head of Sustainable Solutions & EMEA Head of Green Economy Investment Banking, where he will co-lead the firm's global ESG practice.
Umunna was born in Lambeth, south London, on 17 October 1978 and had a "typically middle-class, privileged upbringing". His father, Bennett, of the Nigerian Igbo ethnic group and owner of an import-export business, died in a road accident in Nigeria in 1992. He had come from an impoverished background in Ogbunka, arriving in Liverpool in the 1960s; he studied business administration at night school whilst taking jobs such as cleaning cars, eventually establishing his own company. Umunna's mother, Patricia Milmo, a solicitor, is of English-Irish background, daughter of High Court judge Sir Helenus Milmo QC.
Umunna was educated at Hitherfield Primary School in Streatham, south London, and the Christ Church Primary School in Brixton Hill. He says his parents felt that the local state school had "given up on him" and as a result had moved him to the boys' independent senior school St Dunstan's College, in south-east London, where he played the cello. During this period he was also a chorister at Southwark Cathedral. As a teenager, he was a member of the Liberal Democrats. He was awarded an upper second-class Bachelor of Laws degree in English and French Law from the University of Manchester. After graduating, he studied for one term at the University of Burgundy in Dijon, before studying for a Master of Arts degree at Nottingham Trent University's law school.
Following university, in 2002, Umunna began work as a solicitor for the City of London firm Herbert Smith. In 2006, he joined Rochman Landau (now Ashfords LLP), specialising in employment law and advising companies on contentious, transactional and advisory matters. From 2006, he began to write and provide commentary on the Labour Party, as well as broader social and economic issues, usually in his capacity as a member of the Management Committee of the Labour-aligned Compass think tank. He also wrote articles for the Financial Times, Tribune, The Voice, The Guardian, and the New Statesman, and began to appear on radio and television programmes as a commentator. He founded and edited the online political magazine, The Multicultural Politic. In 2007, he campaigned in support of Jon Cruddas's unsuccessful bid to become Labour deputy leader.
In March 2008, Umunna was adopted as the Labour Party's prospective parliamentary candidate for Streatham. At the 2010 general election, he was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Streatham with a 3,259 majority; he gave his maiden speech on 2 June 2010. He took a particular interest in economic policy and reform of the City.
Umunna described himself as being "One Nation Labour" and has written articles promoting the "Blue Labour" trend. He argued the Conservative-led coalition government should revise its programme of fiscal consolidation, take a tougher stance with the British banking industry and take action to transform the credit ratings agency market.
Umunna was one of 63 Labour MPs to nominate Ed Miliband in the 2010 Labour leadership election to succeed Gordon Brown as party leader.
In June 2010, Umunna was elected as a member of the Treasury Select Committee. In January 2011, he questioned the chief executive of Barclays, Bob Diamond, in relation to alleged tax avoidance activities by the bank during which he disclosed that the bank used over 300 subsidiary companies in offshore jurisdictions. In response to his question, Diamond stated in February 2011 that Barclays had paid £113m in UK corporation tax in 2009, despite making £11.6bn in profit. Umunna held this position on the Select Committee until his appointment as Shadow Minister for Small Business and Enterprise.
In October 2010, following Miliband's election as party leader, Umunna was appointed to serve as his Parliamentary Private Secretary and, in May 2011, he was appointed to the position of Shadow Minister for Small Business and Enterprise until his promotion to the Shadow cabinet.
Umunna was promoted as Shadow Business Secretary on 7 October 2011, replacing John Denham, who announced his retirement from front-bench politics. Following his appointment, Umunna re-affirmed Labour's commitment to introducing a graduate tax in place of university tuition fees. In January 2012, Umunna joined Ed Miliband and Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Rachel Reeves in calling on PM David Cameron to block a £1.6m bonus for Stephen Hester, the chief executive officer of the publicly owned Royal Bank of Scotland Group. During 2013, Umunna led claims that the Government's valuation of the Royal Mail during its privatisation had effectively "shortchanged" the taxpayer, a view supported by the significant rise in the share price following the sale and the subsequent summoning of bankers to a parliamentary investigation.
A member of the Labour Friends of Israel, he and Liam Byrne made an official visit to Israel in October 2012 as part of the LFI's UK-Israel Economic Dialogue group. Whilst a member of LFI, he condemned Israel's military courts for their treatment of Palestinian children accused of combat offences in December 2013.