Claude Ajit Moraes (born 22 October 1965) is a British Labour Party politician and campaigner, who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for London between 1999 and the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020. He was Chair of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, Deputy Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party and Vice-President of the Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament. Background Claude Moraes is of Indian descent. He was born in Aden (State of Aden), and grew up in Scotland, having moved to Dundee aged four from India. His parents are Indian Catholics from Karnataka (Mangalore) and Mumbai. He attended St Modan's High School, Stirling and studied Scots and English law and postgraduate international law at the University of Dundee, Birkbeck, University of London and the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is currently Associate Fellow at City, University of London's Institute for the Study of European Law (ISEL). Previous work After leaving Scotland, Moraes settled in East London, living and volunteering at Toynbee Hall, an anti-poverty charity, where he was later a Council Member. He was House of Commons researcher to MPs John Reid and Paul Boateng following the 1987 General Election and a national officer at the Trades Union Congress in 1989, where he also represented the TUC at the European Trade Union Confederation. Prior to his MEP election, Moraes received recognition as director of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, a UK-based independent legal protection NGO founded in 1967 specialising in refugee and migration issues. At JCWI he helped organise legal challenges in the UK and European Courts succeeding Dame Anne Owers as director in 1992. Moraes was appointed a Commissioner at the Commission for Racial Equality 1997-2002 and was an elected Council member of Liberty 1994–2002. He has campaigned and written regularly on migration, refugee, human rights, digital human rights and counter terrorism/security policy. He contested the parliamentary constituency of Harrow West in the 1992 General Election, placing second. Member of the European Parliament, 1999–2020 He was elected to the European Parliament in the 1999 European elections, that year becoming the first South Asian (Indian) origin MEP elected to the European Parliament and London's first Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) MEP. He was re-elected to the European Parliament at the number one position on the Labour Party list in the