Miriam Joy Cates (born 23 August 1982) is a British politician who was the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Penistone and Stocksbridge from 2019 to 2024.

[8] At that conference, in 2019, Cates met Anne Jenkin, who was recruiting for women candidates, and identified a seat near her home.

[4] After her election, it was reported that a mobile app for foodbanks, developed by a company co-owned by Cates and her husband, was charging charities for its services.

[23] In the latter role, she submitted a report to the Prime Minister presenting evidence that many schools routinely misapply equality law "in favour of gender ideology.

[32] When Braveman accused London's Metropolitan Police of being more lenient with pro-Palestine protesters than supporters of Israel, Cates argued: "Suella Braverman’s views may be distasteful to Westminster liberals but they're utterly mainstream in the rest of UK".

[34] Mirroring the national trend, Cates lost a significant share of votes on polling day (down 23.7%), to both the right-wing Reform UK candidate (taking 21.5%) and to left-wing candidates, with Labour (up 10.3%) and the Green Party of England and Wales (up 4.6%), though the Liberal Democrats also lost ground overall (down 3.7%).

"[36] Offering that her party was "staring into the abyss" because it had failed, or forgotten, voters in post-industrial towns who wanted economic regeneration, patriotism, cultural security family, neighbourhood and nation.

[1] Cates established the New Social Covenant Unit with fellow Conservative MP Danny Kruger in 2021 with the principal purpose of promoting policy that would "strengthen families, communities, and the nation".

[38] In a plenary session of the 2023 National Conservatism Conference, Cates was quoted saying:“I don’t care if you’re a Red Tory, a communitarian, a follower of Burke, or, heaven forbid, a libertarian free marketeer.

None of these traditions has a future, none of our philosophical musings or policy proposals will amount to anything long-lasting unless we address the one overarching threat to British conservatism, and indeed the whole of Western society.

"[39] During the COVID-19 pandemic Cates argued the policy emphasis should have been on "the long term impact of lockdowns on young peoples' lives".

[40] In a speech at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship's inaugural conference, she criticised the way "our GDP-obsessed economic system demands that even mothers of small children leave their infants in daycare to return to the workplace.

[42][43] Cates served on the advisory board of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, a group dedicated to cultural renewal in western nations.

[44] In May 2023, at the National Conservatism Conference, Cates commented that she felt that Western society was threatened by Cultural Marxism along with falling birthrates.

Cates stated in an interview in June 2023 that she misuses the former term as a catch-all pseudonym for "bad liberal ideology".

"[47] She warned that trans advocating charities Stonewall and Mermaids taught "dangerous and contested extreme ideologies that don't have a basis in science".