Eddie Izzard has launched a bid to become a Labour MP in a safe seat and “get Keir Starmer into No10”.
The comedian-turned-politician announced she wants to defend the party’s thumping 27,000 majority in Sheffield Central.
Izzard, 60, will compete with other hopefuls for the local party’s nomination after sitting MP Paul Blomfield said he’d stand down at the next election.
She is likely to learn in late November if she has been made the candidate for a general election - currently expected in Autumn 2024.
Sheffield Central has voted Labour since it was created in the 1980s. Another former Sheffield University student, Abdi Suleiman, is in the running for the Labour nomination.
The legendary performer, who is gender-fluid and has used female pronouns since 2020, is a long-time Labour supporter who has donated tens of thousands of pounds to the party over two decades.
She stood for Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee three times under Jeremy Corbyn, but was defeated by candidates from Corbyn-backing group Momentum.
As a runner-up, she briefly joined the NEC by default in 2018 a left-wing member resigned in a row over anti-Semitism - only to lose out again months later.
Backers said she had campaigned in all elections, local and national, since 2008.
She said: “I’m standing to be the next Labour MP for Sheffield Central to support the city that has supported me to take the fight to the Tories and get Keir Starmer into Number 10.
“12 years of Tory rule has told Sheffield its voice doesn’t matter. Surestart centres, gone. The number of nurses and doctors, down. Police on the beat, cut. Sheffield is being held back.”
In the 1980s, Izzard began studying accountancy and financial management with mathematics at the University of Sheffield, before later gaining an honorary doctorate from the same institution in 2006.
And although she was born in Yemen before moving to Northern Ireland and then Wales, she said the people of the Northern city had made her feel “welcome.”
She added: “Sheffield has a proud history, showing grit and determination in overcoming adversities and it was the wit and generosity of the people of this city that made me feel welcome when I first arrived in 1980.”
Her campaign said she had recently campaigned against the closure of the city’s iconic Leadmill venue, urged better bus services, and raised money for food banks.
Izzard stated her interest in becoming a Labour MP back in 2020, telling ex-MP Tom Watson: “I was trying to get in at the last election.
“We need to be heading towards a more positive future, so I will fight for that. I have a lot of energy. I feel I can communicate.”
If elected Izzard would become Britain’s second ever openly transgender MP, after Tory Jamie Wallis came out earlier this year.
She previously spoke about knowing she was transgender before she turned six years old.
She told the BBC in 2016 it was a “very hard journey”, adding: “I identify somewhat boyish and somewhat girlish. I identify both, but I fancy women. I don’t know why, it’s the genetic cards I’ve been given.
“A lot of people have said very nasty things to me, have fought me in the streets.”
In 2020 she said she had adopted the pronouns “she” and “her”, saying she wants “to be based in girl mode from now on”.
