Magid Magid (Majiid Majiid)

Who is he?

Magid Magid is a British activist and politician of Somali birth (Wikipedia, Magid Magid). He was Lord Mayor of Sheffield from May 2018 to May 2019 (same source). He was then a member of the European Parliament until January 2020 (same source). This page covers his public role and takes no side in party politics.

Early life

He was born in Burao, in the Togdheer region, on 26 June 1989 (Wikipedia). In 1994 his mother left with her six children (same source). They spent six months in a refugee camp in Ethiopia before reaching Britain (same source). The family settled in Burngreave, Sheffield, and his mother worked as a cleaner (same source). See Somalis in Sheffield and refugee camps.

He studied aquatic zoology at the University of Hull, where he was elected president of the students' union (same source). He later worked in digital marketing and for the housing charity Shelter (same source).

Sheffield

He joined the Green Party in 2014 and was elected a Sheffield city councillor in 2016 (same source). He was Deputy Lord Mayor from 2017 to 2018 (same source). On 16 May 2018 the council swore him in as Lord Mayor, a ceremonial post (same source). He was 28, the youngest person to hold the role (Newstalk, May 2018). He was also the first Somali and the first Green Party councillor in the post (Wikipedia).

As Lord Mayor he named rapper Otis Mensah as Sheffield's first poet laureate (same source). He set a fundraising target of 100,000 pounds for three local charities (same source). His inauguration portrait and his statements on Donald Trump drew wide media attention (same source). He said most responses were positive, though he also received racist comments (same source).

European Parliament

In May 2019 he was elected a Green member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber, with 13 percent of the vote (Wikipedia). He sat on the civil liberties committee (same source). His seat ended when the United Kingdom left the European Union on 31 January 2020 (same source).

Later work

He founded Union of Justice, a group working on racial and climate justice (same source). He published The Art of Disruption in 2020 (same source). The University of York gave him an honorary doctorate in 2023 (same source).

In short

A refugee child from Burao who became Lord Mayor of Sheffield in 2018 and a member of the European Parliament from 2019 to 2020.