Laura Smith

Smith attended Brine Leas School in Nantwich, Cheshire and South Cheshire College in Crewe. She went on to study at Crewe campus of Manchester Metropolitan University, qualifying as a school teacher. She founded a tutoring business, called One-to-One Learning UK, based in Nantwich, where she worked with hundreds of schoolchildren in the local area.

Smith was involved in the campaign against school funding cuts in Cheshire East. She told the Crewe Chronicle: "I sat at home after going to a public meeting at Brine Leas School" about proposed education cuts "and I decided enough was enough regarding the funding for schools and I posted something on Facebook. From that, I got involved with the fairer funding".

She helped to organise a rally in Nantwich in February 2017 that was attended by over 400 people. A few weeks following that, she helped lead a march of around 1,000 people through Sandbach. She joined the headteacher of Brine Leas School, Andrew Cliffe, on a visit to London to lobby MPs against the proposed funding changes. She was subsequently announced as the Labour Party candidate for the Crewe and Nantwich constituency in the snap 2017 general election on 1 May 2017. She was reported to have been selected ahead of Labour's 2015 candidate in the constituency, Adrian Heald.

She launched her campaign on 3 May, saying "What ordinary people need are decent well-paid jobs and greater job security. In this race locally, I am the only candidate committed to that." She also said that she was not a "natural-born politician" and promised to be a "different sort of MP if elected that remains accessible and up front with her constituents". In the election, with the results for Crewe and Nantwich being announced at 6.15 am on 9 June, Smith defeated incumbent Conservative junior minister Edward Timpson by 48 votes, overturning a majority of 3,620. She declared that the result "sent a message to the establishment and the elite", the seat having been held by the Conservatives in elections since Gwyneth Dunwoody died in 2008. The seat saw a 9.4% swing to Labour, and an increase in turnout of 3%, to just under 70%.