Jeremy Corbyn

His first marriage, with Jane Chapman, a professor at the ‘University of Lincoln,’ lasted from 1974 to 1979.

In 1987, he married Chilean exile Claudia Bracchitta. However, the marriage ended in a divorce in 1999. They have three sons.

In 2013, he tied the knot with Mexican-born Laura Álvarez, a former human-rights lawyer in Mexico, who currently runs a fair-trade coffee import business.

He was born on May 26, 1949, in Chippenham, England, to David Benjamin Corbyn and Naomi Loveday (née Josling). He was the youngest of their four sons. His father was an electrical engineer, skilled in power rectifiers, and his mother was a mathematics teacher.

One of his elder brothers, Piers Richard Corbyn, is an astrophysicist, a weather forecaster, and an entrepreneur.

Corbyn was initially raised in Kington St. Michael in Wiltshire. Thereafter, his family relocated to Pave Lane in Shropshire, when he was seven years old. He studied at ‘Castle House School’ and thereafter, at the ‘Adams' Grammar School.’

He became actively involved with the ‘Labour Party’ ’, the ‘Wrekin’ constituency, Young Socialists, and with the animal-welfare charity ‘League Against Cruel Sports.’ In 1966, he joined the ‘Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’ (CND) and was eventually made one of the three vice-chairmen of the organization.

At age 18, prior to leaving school, he obtained two E-grade A-Levels, following which he began working as a reporter at the ‘Newport and Market Drayton Advertiser,’ a local newspaper. After a short stint there, he got involved with the international development charity ‘Voluntary Service Overseas’ (VSO), that saw him moving to Jamaica, where he served as a youth worker and geography teacher for two years.

Following his return to the UK in 1971, he started serving the ‘National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers’ as a union organiser. He also became associated with other unions as a trade union organizer.

Corbyn was elected to the ‘Haringey Council’ in the South Hornsey ward in early 1974 and was re-elected as the councilor in the Harringay ward in 1978, following an alteration of its boundary. He held this position till 1983.

In the 1980s, he had a stint as a contributor and editorial board member with the ‘Labour Party,’ which produced a monthly political magazine ‘London Labour Briefing.’ According to some reports, he also served as the general secretary of the magazine for a while. He opposed expulsions of the Trotskyist entryist group ‘Militant tendency’ in the July 1982 edition of the magazine.

The 1981 the ‘Labour Party’ deputy leadership election saw him working on Tony Benn's deputy leadership campaign. Benn unsuccessfully challenged the incumbent deputy leader Denis Healey.

In February 1982, he was selected by the ‘Labour Party’ as a candidate for the Islington North constituency for the 1983 general election. He defeated incumbent Michael O'Halloran to become the MP for Islington North and assumed office on June 9, 1983. He continues to hold this office to date.

Corbyn, who also campaigns for gay rights, voiced his opinion on a "no socialism without gay liberation" platform in 1983. He served on the ‘National Executive’ of the ‘Anti-Apartheid Movement’ and faced arrest in 1984 for campaigning against apartheid outside ‘South Africa House.’ He also backed the miners' strike of 1984–85.

The conflict in Northern Ireland drew his attention in the 1980s and saw him getting associated with prominent members of ‘Sinn Féin,’ a left-wing Irish republican political party that has remained associated with the ‘Provisional Irish Republican Army’ (IRA), an Irish republican paramilitary organization.

He protested against the ‘Community Charge’ in 1990 and was almost at the verge of getting incarcerated for non-payment of tax. A file was opened on him by ‘MI5,’ in the early 1990s, on suspicion of his association with the IRA. The ‘Special Branch’ of ‘Metropolitan Police’ also monitored him for two decades, apprehending his possible attempt to “undermine democracy."

He was a member of the ‘Social Security Select Committee’ from 1992 to 1997. From 2009 to 2010, he served as a member of the ‘London Regional Select Committee,’ and from 2010 to 2015 he served as a member of the ‘Justice Select Committee.’