Joy Morrissey

Morrissey was born Joyce Rebekah Inboden on 30 January 1981 as the eldest child of Scott William Inboden and Deborah Onieta Crowley, who married on 23 December 1978 in Summit County, Ohio. Joy has four younger siblings: Christopher, Tad, David, and Karis.[4] She attended Worthington Christian High School and graduated in 1999.[5] Morrissey received a master's degree specialising in European Social Policy from the London School of Economics.[6]

Morrissey was elected as a Conservative councillor on the Ealing Council, where she represented the ward of Hanger Hill, until April 2020.

She was a London-wide list candidate at the 2016 London Assembly election but failed to win her seat.

She unsuccessfully contested Ealing Central and Acton in the 2017 general election.

She unsuccessfully sought nomination to be the London Conservatives mayoral candidate for the 2021 London mayoral election and made it through to the final three short list.

In 2019 Morrissey was selected as the new Conservative candidate for Beaconsfield. At the snap December election Morrissey defeated former Conservative Dominic Grieve, who had represented Beaconsfield for 22 years, who contested the seat as an Independent. She was elected with a significantly reduced vote share and majority,[3] becoming the third American-born female MP overall, the first to enter Parliament after a general election, and also the first American woman in more than 80 years to receive votes as a winning candidate. Connecticut-born Beatrice Rathbone, also a Conservative, was elected unopposed for Bodmin after a 1941 by-election.

In 2020, Morrissey was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

During her 2017 candidacy for Ealing Central and Acton, Morrissey's Hollywood performances were commented upon by the British press. Featuring under her stage name Joy Boden, she appeared in a low-budget film named Geek Mythology, in which she wore a basque and rode on the back of a man wearing a cowboy hat.[7]