John Eugene Joseph Dromey (29 September 1948 – 7 January 2022) was a British politician and trade unionist who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Erdington from 2010 to 2022.

In 1973 he took a leading role in planning the occupation of Centre Point,[5] along with prominent Housing and Direct Action campaigners Jim Radford and Ron Bailey.

This high-profile event was designed to highlight and publicise the perceived injustice of London's most prominent (and tallest) building development – which included a number of luxury flats – remaining empty for consecutive years while tens of thousands of people languished on housing waiting lists across the capital.

Peter Watt, the then Labour general secretary, later revealed that Unite the Union had given £1 million in donations on the assumption of Dromey gaining nomination for the safe seat of Wolverhampton North East.

[16] It was revealed in January 2010 that the seat would not be subject to an all-woman shortlist,[17] but the Constituency Labour Party subsequently selected former Hornchurch MP John Cryer as its candidate on 27 February.

He remained in post following Jeremy Corbyn's election as leader until his resignation in June 2016, but returned to the frontbench as Shadow Minister for Labour in October 2016.

In November 2011, John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, launched an investigation into allegations that Dromey had failed to declare thousands of pounds in salary.

However, as he died a month later, he only made one parliamentary speech in this capacity in a Westminster Hall debate on the Afghan resettlement scheme just the day before his death.

[32] Dromey stated publicly that neither he nor Labour's elected National Executive Committee (NEC) chairman, Sir Jeremy Beecham, had knowledge of or involvement in the loans, and that he had become aware of them when he read about them in the newspapers.

[44] Dromey served for ten years on the executive of the National Council for Civil Liberties,[45] a pressure group for which Harman worked as legal officer.

[46] Dromey, whose parents were from counties Cork and Tipperary, was a strong supporter of Irish causes in Parliament and in his Birmingham constituency, and a regular attender at the city's yearly St Patrick's Day parades.

[10][48] Former prime minister Tony Blair described Dromey as a "stalwart of the Labour and trade union movement", while Gordon Brown said he had lost "a friend, colleague and great humanitarian who never stopped fighting for social justice".

The flags of Parliament were lowered to half-mast, and House of Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle said MPs were "all in disbelief that the life-force that was Jack Dromey has died".