Derek Draper

On 23 May 2019, Draper announced he had resigned his Labour Party membership of 35 years. In a statement, Draper announced:

Well, after what must be 35+ years I have left the Labour party. I didn't seem to have a choice, as you can’t really be a member of a party and then vote for another. It's not just about Corbyn, I'm not sure I've felt "Labour" for some time. It seems to me that the party is basically stupid and then every now and again sensible people have to take it over so it can win but what an effort that is and it never lasts. My political views have changed anyway over the last 10 years so I’m not sure where I'll end up. Somewhere where there is some sort of actual leadership would be a start. Farewell comrades. It's your party now.

After leaving politics, Draper retrained as a psychotherapist, obtaining an MA in clinical psychology after what he described as "three years in Berkeley, California". While in Berkeley, he worked as "the development director of a community counselling centre"; later, he claimed to have entered "private practice in Marylebone, London". He subsequently clarified that he in fact studied at the Wright Institute of California, a graduate school in the town of Berkeley founded by Nevitt Sanford. Draper responded to the controversy surrounding his claimed psychotherapy degree, by denying the allegations completely and saying that this was "a brazen attempt to smear me by Guido Fawkes and David Hencke". He stated in 2009 that he was considering taking legal action against them, but never did.

In response to a formal complaint the BACP announced on 24 November 2009 that it had

On 7 June 2009, emails that were highly critical of Gordon Brown that Peter Mandelson sent Draper in January 2008 were leaked to the News of the World which claimed that Brown was "insecure" and a "self-conscious person, physically and emotionally".

Draper was the founder and editor of LabourList website, which was launched in January 2009. He explained that he started the website in response to the increasing role that the internet was playing in British politics and so that Labourites would have their own place on the blogosphere. Contributors to his website included David Lammy, Peter Mandelson, James Purnell and Piers Morgan. Although LabourList was generally supportive of the Labour Party, it claimed to publish articles and views critical of the Labour government.

On 11 April 2009, it was reported by The Daily Telegraph that Gordon Brown's special adviser, Damian McBride, had sent a series of emails to Draper discussing plans to set up a blog which would be used to post false rumours about the private lives of senior or prominent members of the Conservative Party and their spouses. These smears would have included sexual and personal fabrications against MP Nadine Dorries, Conservative leader David Cameron and his wife, Samantha, and Shadow Chancellor George Osborne and his wife Frances.

During 2008, Draper made a return to British politics. He was described on the BBC television current affairs programme Newsnight, on 12 September 2008, as a Labour Campaign Advisor. Draper's position at that time was as an unpaid adviser to Ray Collins, the then General Secretary of the Labour Party.

In the 2005 General Election Draper urged people to vote tactically against Labour, saying, "I don't want my vote to be used as vindication for Tony Blair, I'd like him to wake up after the election and feel like a hunted man".

Draper married GMTV presenter Kate Garraway in 2005 in Camden, London. Draper was hospitalised in April 2020 suffering with Covid-19 and admitted to the intensive care unit.

Derek Draper has the following qualifications: An M.A. in Psychology from the Wright Institute in Berkeley (2004) and a second M.A. in the Foundations of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy from the Tavistock Centre, London / Essex University (2009). The former was the result of three years full-time study, the latter of two years of part-time study. As part of his first M.A. he undertook an extensive clinical training, undertaking over 1500 hours of supervised clinical work with different client populations and therapeutic modalities.

In 1998, while still working as a director at GPC Market Access, Draper was caught on tape, with Jonathan Mendelsohn, boasting to Greg Palast – an undercover reporter from The Observer posing as a businessman – about how they could sell access to government ministers and create tax breaks for their clients. When the tabloids got hold of the story, they dubbed it "Lobbygate". On the recording, Draper said that "there are 17 people who count in this government ... [to] say I am intimate with every one of them is the understatement of the century." Palast also wrote that Draper said, regarding his motivation: "I just want to stuff my bank account at 250 pounds an hour". According to Palast, "Draper was nothing more than a messenger boy, a factotum, a purveyor, a self-loving, over-scented clerk". Although he denied the allegations and accused The Observer of attempting to entrap him, he was widely ridiculed in the aftermath. Palast later stated that the subsequent media coverage got his original story wrong, and that it was not primarily about boastful lobbyists: "the real story was about Tony Blair and his inner circle".

Draper began his political career in 1990, when he became the constituency secretary for Nick Brown. In 1992, he left this job and went to work as a researcher for the MP for Hartlepool, Peter Mandelson. In 1996, he became a director of a lobbying firm called GPC Market Access, and was employed by them until early 1999. While working at GPC Market Access, he set up the New Labour organisation Progress with Liam Byrne. During the late 1990s, Draper worked as the Political Editor of the Modern Review, was briefly a columnist for the Daily Express, and a presenter on Talk Radio UK.

Born in Chorley, Lancashire, Draper was educated at Southlands High School there, graduating in 1984. He later attended Runshaw College in Leyland and the University of Manchester. While at the university, Draper provided hospitality for Ken Livingstone, who had missed his train after a Labour Club meeting. Livingstone was reportedly astonished to find displayed in Draper's student room an improbably large poster of Labour Party deputy leader, Roy Hattersley. At around this time, he first met Charlotte Raven, with whom he was later involved romantically.

Derek William Draper (born 15 August 1967) is an English former lobbyist. As a political advisor he was involved in two political scandals, "Lobbygate" in 1998, and again in 2009 while Draper was editor of the LabourList website. He has worked as a psychotherapist.