‘My parents would be astonished – an MP son and three of us on the Board of Deputies’
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‘My parents would be astonished – an MP son and three of us on the Board of Deputies’

Jewish News spoke with Peter Prinsley about his unexpected new career as an MP, his active role with the Norwich Jewish community and career as an NHS surgeon

Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor

Dr Peter Prinsley MP, left, at Norwich Synagogue
Dr Peter Prinsley MP, left, at Norwich Synagogue

When he rises to speak in the House of Commons it is hard not to assume that Peter Prinsley MP has been doing the political beat for years.

Without being cruel, it fair to say the active Norwich Synagogue member, and Board of Deputies representative, has mastered the art of delivering his message in Parliament’s pressurised environment far quicker than some of his younger colleagues also elected at last July’s general election.

Take the 66-year-old’s recent Prime Minister’s Question time intervention on regime change in Syria, for instance.

Whilst debate on the Middle East has provoked some of the most foul and partisan language from MPs, Prinsley arose from his seat on the Labour benches to gently ask: “What practical measures can the UK take to help ensure that Syria now has the best chance of becoming an open society and the second functional democracy in the region?”

Drawing on his near three decades long experience as an otorhinolaryngologist – a physician specialising in diseases of the ear, nose, and throat –  he added: “We have in our NHS many brilliant émigré and refugee surgeons from the greatly troubled Middle East.

“I have been privileged to work alongside some of them from Iran, Iraq and from Syria.”

Then last week in a Commons debate leading up to Holocaust Memorial Day, Prinsley said: “On Monday I will stand in Abbey Gardens in Bury St Edmunds, at a steel teardrop erected as a memorial not only to the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, but to the 57 Jews slaughtered by their neighbours in Bury St Edmunds in March 1190.”

Peter Prinsley MP in the Commons

Meeting Prinsley at his Westminster office, it becomes clear he is relishing the opportunity given to him fairly late in his career to become an MP.

And seems also clear of a responsibility to be a voice for those in the UK Jewish community who have not lived in the main communal hubs such as London and Manchester.

At the last general election Prinsley had caused one of the surprises of the campaign by defeating the Tory candidate, the former Downing Street special adviser Will Tanner, in the constituency of Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, previously considered to be one of the Tories safest seats in the country.

The Conservatives  had mounted a lacklustre campaign, while Prinsley’s medical credentials impressed voters on the doorstep, as did the old post office van his campaign team used to secure backing for the Labour representative.

“A common thing people would say on the doorstep was that I was the first political person they had ever met,” recalls Prinsley. “People started saying something should change, and maybe we should vote Labour, and that’s exactly what happened.”

Having gained vital experience in local politics in Norwich, at the general election Prinsley secured over 16,000 votes and a 1,452 majority against his Tor opponent to become the first ever Labour MP to represent the seat.

“I’m still the most astonished person here,” he laughs, reliving his unexpected journey into Westminster. “I have a continuous sense of being astonished, but I’m enjoying it.”

Dr Peter Prinsley

Prinsley’s victory has also helped boost the number of Jewish MPs whose background stems from the lesser publicised regions of the country.

“I suppose what I am is a small communities British Jewish person,” he says, recalling his upbringing growing up in the now defunct Middleborough Hebrew Congregation from a family of immigrants who settled in the north east of England and in north Yorkshire.

Prinsley’s mother’s family were originally from London but had been evacuated during the war, whilst his grandfather had a peanut business in Yorkshire.

At school he flourished at what Prinsley describes as “ordinary state schools” in Teesside, before going on to study as a medical student at Sheffield University.

“We were the only Jewish boys in school, me and my brother,” he recalls, of the small community he grew up in. “You know, people think that Anglo-Jewry is really London, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow.

“But something like a quarter of all the Jewish people who identify live in small communities. ”

Asked he encountered antisemitism as a youngster, he says: “I think we were just regarded as curiosities, rather than anything else, during my childhood.

“I don’t think there really was much in the way of antisemitism. Probably there was, but we didn’t notice it so much. ”

Antisemitism in this country, reasons Prinsley has “really had the lid taken off of it since the time of the left-wing take over of the Labour Party and all the terrible stuff that Corbyn and his cronies got up to.”

A Labour Party member for as long as he can remember, as well as Jewish Labour Movement one, he says: “That’s what really alienated the anglo-Jewish community from Labour, I think.

“The Labour Party in a way had been the natural political home of the Jewish population. You didn’t have to think who you were going to vote for. If you were Jewish you voted for the Labour Party.”

Prinsley accepts that for a fair party of the community up until the last election, such continued loyalty to Labour would have seemed “astonishing.”

He adds of Keir Starmer’s election victory: “But more must have voted Labour again this time.”

Peter Prinsley (centre) at Norwich Synagogue

The Prinsley family is closely linked to the Norwich Hebrew Congregation at the Norwich Synagogue, close to where they now live.

His wife, Dr Marian Prinsley, who served as sheriff of Norwich between 2019 and 2021, is a former president of the shul.

They have three children and are now grandparents.

With a small but engaged community, Norwich, the only synagogue in the wider region, has its own rabbi.

The community has got “an amazing, interesting history – the history of what happened to the Jewish people in Norwich over the centuries,” says Prinsley. “We’re very much identified in that group.”

Alongside his career in the NHS, and now in Westminster, Prinsley has also found time to represent his community on the Board of Deputies.

He is not the only member of the family to do so, either. Judith, his sister-in-law, is also a Deputy in London, whilst his own sister Emma was also recently elected on to the communal body.

Prinsley jokes that his late parents “would be utterly astonished” with the current state of play. “Their son was an MP and three of their children were sitting on the Board of Deputies!”

The MP describes the Board as being an “incredibly well intentioned” organisation and suggests current president Phil Rosenberghas been “an amazing breath of fresh air and a great representative for us.”

“He’s got an amazing ability to say exactly the right thing at exactly the right time,” says Prinsley “and it’s very, very personable, easy to engage with.”

“I think he’s been a great choice, and he wasn’t obviously the obvious choice because he was much younger than any of the other candidates.”

Peter Prinsley (Labour) joins MPs and communal reps including Jim Shannon (DUP), David Robinson (Board of Deputies), Laura Marks (Mitzvah Day), Dan Tomlinson (Labour), , Guy Dabby-Joory (JLC), Tom Morrison (Lib Dem and Mitzvah Day

Asked if Jewish values influenced his decision to pursue a medical career, Prinsley, who trained for his ENT role in Leeds, Bradford and Hull, having also been a registrar at the Royal Free in north London, he notes the large number of Jews with careers as doctors.

But of his own career progression he adds: “I suppose I’m quite a practical person, I always enjoyed those aspects of medicine.”

“Surgery isn’t for everybody,” he reasons, “but it’s been the right choice for me.”

Before being elected to Parliament, he worked as a consultant ENT surgeon at the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital, James Paget University Hospital and in private practice.

He has a research interest in Otologyand taught at Norwich Medical School.

Prinsley has also been a regional director for the Royal College of Surgeons, and was the chair of the Norfolk Deaf Association.

Part of an informal group of Labour doctors on a WhatsApp group, he now has high hopes that the new government can bring about much needed change and improvement to the NHS, under guidelines set out by Health Secretary Wes Streeting, although he accepts ” people probably feel a bit frustrated that this pace of change is not yet visible. ”

“There are some simple things that we must do,” he adds. “I mean, we must definitely make sure that people have emergency dental services, we must certainly improve access to general practice.

“We got to do something about getting the surgical waiting lists under control.

“And there are all sorts of things we are doing… the IT innovations in general practice.

“And you know the idea that we can use some of the unfunded, unspent dental budget to fund emergency services. So there are lots of things going on.”

Peter Prinsley on the campaign trail

Our interview is interrupted with Prinsley having to prepare for a debate he is about to lead in Westminster Hall on health matters.

It would be easy to listen to his wise observations for considerably longer.

Asked finally, what advice he would give those younger than him in the community, possibly considering a political career ahead of university, he says: “Join a political party, work out what it is that you actually believe, and try to get active in your community.”

“There are various organisations that you can join that are quite inspiring,” adds Prinsley, who points to the Fabians on the Labour side.

“I don’t know what the equivalent is on the Conservative Party is, but I imagine there is something, I’m sure,” he adds, before finishing work on a speech that will almost certainly impress those who hear it in that afternoon’s debate.

 

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