Sweeney was born at Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow on 16 January 1989 to Anne Patricia Sweeney (née Doherty), a bank clerk and John Gordon Sweeney, a shipyard worker.[1] The elder of two brothers,[2] he was brought up in Auchinairn, and Milton.[3] Sweeney attended St. Matthew's Primary School and Turnbull High School in Bishopbriggs.
At the 2017 general election he stood for Glasgow North East where a 12% swing to Labour led to him defeating Anne McLaughlin of the SNP by just 242 votes, overturning a 25% majority of 9,222 in an unexpected result, having not even prepared a victory speech.[24][25] McLaughlin had taken the seat from the previous MP, William Bain of the Labour Party at the 2015 general election, and she had been elected with a 39% swing; which was the largest swing at the 2015 general election seen anywhere in the UK.[26] The seat and its predecessors had previously been held by Labour MPs continuously since George Hardie, brother of the Labour Party's founder Keir Hardie, was elected for Glasgow Springburn in 1935. At the age of 28, he was the second youngest Labour MP elected in 2017, after Danielle Rowley.[27]
He was a critic of the seven Labour MPs who defected to form Change UK in February 2019, describing them as "self-centred careerists" at a meeting which took place the following month to mark the relaunch of Tribune magazine.[32]
In November 2018, he won 'Best Scot at Westminster' in the annual Scottish Politician of the Year awards,[33] following his lobbying of the Home Secretary and Prime Minister in asylum seeker rights cases such as that of Giorgi Kakava, a ten-year-old orphan who had been threatened with deportation following the death of his mother,[34] the Kamil family who had been left without status for 18 years,[35] teenage brothers Somer and Areeb Umeed Bakhsh,[36][37] who were also supported by the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn during a visit to Possilpark in August 2018,[38] and trafficking victim Duc Nguyen.[39]
In February 2019, the Daily Record reported that an unnamed Scottish MP had made a formal complaint that Scottish Conservative MP Ross Thomson had groped them in Strangers' Bar in October 2018, in the wake of a similar incident that was alleged to have occurred earlier that month.[40] The Daily Mail named Sweeney as the complainant in November 2019, leading to the chairman of Thomson's local Conservative Association refusing to sign the nomination papers to allow him to stand as a Conservative candidate for Aberdeen South in the December 2019 general election.[41] Thomson's former civil partner also came forward to cite similar instances of behaviour.[42]The Times reported in February 2020 that the investigation had been widened to include a further allegation of a similar nature.[43] In July 2020, Sweeney branded the investigation process "shambolic" and "not fit for purpose".[44] In October 2020, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards ruled that the allegation of sexual assault was not upheld by the available evidence. The Commissioner found there was evidence Thomson put his arms around Sweeney and inappropriately invaded his personal space while drunk but ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that this behaviour was sexual in nature.[45] It has since been reported that Sweeney is appealing the ruling.[46]
In 2019, he was cited as the least expensive MP in Scotland by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, including: constituency office costs and staff salaries, as well as London accommodation rent and travel costs.[47]
2019 election
Sweeney lost his seat to the previous Scottish National Party MP Anne McLaughlin, at the 2019 general election with a marginal majority of 2,458 votes on a 4% swing, the closest result in Glasgow.[48] After losing his seat, he went on to work on Angela Rayner's successful campaign in the 2020 Labour Party deputy leadership election.[49] He described the experience of losing his seat as, “The most spectacular sacking in recent Glasgow history. I was the only scalp in Glasgow that night. It was a fairly unpleasant experience. It's almost like a public execution. It's got a grim voyeurism to it. It's one of the few examples in society where people losing their jobs is treated like a blood sport.”[50]
During the campaign, Sweeney was forced to apologise after tweeting about wanting to play a game of "Whac-a-Sturgeon" a remark the then-First Minister tweeted about saying "What a charmer".[51]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweeney revealed he had begun applying for Universal Credit in May 2020,[49] saying "The reality is, the majority of Scots are working class – if they stopped earning a salary, within two months they'd be in financial difficulties. However prestigious or seemingly privileged you are in terms of your work or identity, you're never far away from that. If more of us realised how close we are to that peril, maybe the social security system wouldn't be so punitive."[52] He later wrote an article describing his experiences of life on social security in December 2020, stating "I will admit that I’ve occasionally had suicidal thoughts in my darker moments over the last few months." He also called for Universal Credit to be converted into a Universal Basic Income system.[53]
In May 2022, Mr Sweeney launched a consultation on his proposed bill, the Drugs Death Prevention (Scotland) Bill, in response to drug related deaths in Scotland, aiming to enable the establishment of Overdose Prevention Centres.[57][58] In November 2022, he won 'Community MSP of the Year' at The Herald'sScottish Politician of the Year awards for his work on the drugs death crisis, including a bill to establish overdose prevention centres.[59]
In February 2024, Sweeney was forced to withdraw his sponsorship of a Scottish Parliamentary event celebrating BAE Systems after strong public condemnation surrounding their involvement in providing arms to the Israeli military.[60] The following week Sweeney’s constituency office was raided by six protesters protesting his failure to support the people of Palestine.[61]
Sweeney backed the UK Government’s decision to introduce means-testing for the Winter Fuel Payment, voting in the Scottish Parliament against calls to reverse the decision.[62]
In leaked WhatsApp messages, the "soft Brexit" position taken by Scottish Labour in its 2019 European Parliament election campaign was criticised by Sweeney, who wrote, "If it's like this then it's a bad misjudgement and I'm having nothing to do with it... Let's hope the NEC [National Executive Committee] kill this bullshit line."[72] Scottish Labour lost both its seats, receiving 9.3% of the vote and coming fifth behind the SNP, Brexit Party, Scottish Liberal Democrats and Scottish Conservatives respectively.[73]
Sweeney opposed Home Office contractor Serco[80] evicting hundreds of asylum seekers from their accommodation across Glasgow,[81][82][83] In 2019 he committed Labour to ending unlimited immigration detention in prison-like facilities, including Dungavel.[84] In May 2021, the Home Office arrested two men in Pollokshields leading to a mass protest surrounding the immigration enforcement van. Sweeney addressed the protest and called for Glaswegians to join the picket in support of the detained men.[85] In December 2021, he launched a campaign to extend the Scottish National Entitlement Card eligibility for free bus travel to all asylum seekers resident in Scotland, arguing that the vast majority were fleeing wars and persecution, but until their applications are determined they are not allowed to work, are subject to "no recourse to public funds" visa restrictions and are forced to live in "slum-like" accommodation, with just over £5 a day to live on.[86]
Armed forces and veterans
Sweeney voiced his concern to the Prime Minister, Theresa May about British participation in the April 2018 missile strikes against Syria, calling for an “internationally policed no-fly zone" over Syria to stop the regime bombing its own population.[87] In the wake of a series of veteran suicides in the summer of 2018, including from his former regiment,[88] He has criticised the British Army and Ministry of Defence for inadequate mental health support for former soldiers, and a lack of sufficient records to establish the scale of the problem, accusing them of ‘passing the buck’ to overstretched military charities like Combat Stress.[89] In 2019, he campaigned to allow over 6,000 personnel currently serving in the British Armed Forces from foreign and Commonwealth countries the right to British citizenship without immigration fees, including the Brigade of Gurkhas.[90][91] Sweeney also successfully campaigned to restore the Highland Light Infantry memorial in Kelvingrove Park after it was vandalised in February 2019.[92]
Appointed as Scottish Labour's armed forces and veterans spokesman after his election as an MSP, Sweeney has been critical of the decision in the Ministry of Defence's 2021 Defence in a Competitive Age command paper to transfer the historic Royal Scots Borderers battalion from the Royal Regiment of Scotland into the new Ranger Regiment, losing its identity as a Scottish infantry unit, while cutting the size of the Black Watch battalion and also reducing the regiment's pipe bands.[93]
Sweeney has spoken out against cuts to local public amenities by Glasgow City Council, including the controversial closure of the People's Palace in January 2019,[98] and supporting community-led campaigns against the closure of Whitehill Swimming Pool in Dennistoun,[99] and the city's six municipal golf courses.[100]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he led calls for Glasgow City Council to abolish a 1996 by-law that bans drinking in the city's public parks and other outdoor spaces, and to license family-orientated beer gardens in the main parks to raise money for the city.[101]
Glasgow Works
Sweeney led a campaign against the closure of the last railway engineering works in Springburn, the St. Rollox ‘Caley’ Railway Works in concert with the Unite and RMT trade unions, lobbying both the UK and Scottish Governments to renationalise the works[102][103] In May 2022, it was reported that an application he had made for the railway works site to be designated as listed by Historic Environment Scotland was successful, with the buildings and railway sidings awarded a category B listing.[104][105]
Sweeney has an interest in built heritage and architectural issues in Glasgow.[114] He is a director of the Glasgow City Heritage Trust, a member of Glasgow Building Preservation Trust[115] and has led walks as part of Glasgow Doors Open Days Festival for several years.[116] Sweeney was also involved in the restoration of the historic former Govan shipyard head offices into the Fairfield Heritage Centre in 2014, for which he won an award, and the restoration of the 'Light and Life' sculpture on the former headquarters building of the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society in the Kingston district of Glasgow in 2016.[117][118] In 2021, he became a trustee of The Egyptian HallsSCIO, a Scottish Civic Trust project to save the Alexander 'Greek' Thomson masterpiece.[119][120]
After campaigning against the demolition of Springburn Public Halls in 2012,[121] he founded the Springburn Winter Gardens Trust, which is working to restore the nearby historic glasshouse in Springburn Park.[122] An £8 million restoration programme by Collective Architecture to convert the building into a major events and performance venue was unveiled by the Trust in October 2020.[123]
