[4] In interviews, Merrick has discussed how her mother was one of 31,000 council workers threatened with redundancy by Derek Hatton and the Militant in Liverpool.
[2][7] At the age of 19, Merrick set up a listings magazine called L:Scene during her gap year in 1993 which was her first job in journalism.
[10][11] Merrick left the newspaper to become political editor for The Independent on Sunday,[12][13] a position she held till 2015 when she became a freelance journalist to spend more time with her daughter.
[16] Merrick left Labour in 2018 due to Jeremy Corbyn's leadership and their handling of antisemitism within the party.
[17] In November 2017, then Secretary of State for Defence Michael Fallon resigned following Merrick's allegation of sexual harassment when she was a 29-year-old journalist for The Daily Mail in 2003.