Meral Hussein Ece, Baroness Hussein-Ece, OBE ([ˈedʒe] EDGE-ey; born 10 October 1955) is a British Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords.

[3] Her Turkish Cypriot parents, Ayşe Cuma Abdullah (mother) and Hasan Nihat Hüseyin (father), came to the UK from Cyprus in the early 1950s, and settled in Islington, North London.

[citation needed] Ece and her second cousin Tracey Emin's paternal great-grandfather, Abdullah, was reportedly a Sudanese slave in the Ottoman Empire.

[12] In May 2008, Ece was appointed by the Minister for Equalities, Harriet Harman MP to serve on the Government's Task Force to increase the numbers of ethnic minority women councillors in the UK.

[16] In November 2012, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate (DLitt) by Coventry University, for her work to promote equality for ethnic minorities in the UK, and contribution to peace in Cyprus.

She claimed the word was not derogatory, but writers such as Polly Toynbee criticised her, arguing that the term was "acceptable class abuse by people asserting superiority over those they despise".