historically, morley was the centre of one of two divisions of the wapentake of agbrigg and morley. morley became a municipal borough in 1889 and under the local government act 1972, was incorporated into the city of leeds metropolitan district. morley is represented on leeds city council by three wards (namely morley north, morley south and ardsley and robin hood) each with three councillors. at the 2010 general election, morley and outwood was won by ed balls of the labour party, who had been mp for normanton since 2005, and served as labour's shadow chancellor of the exchequer from 2011 until 2015. balls narrowly lost the seat at the 2015 general election to conservative andrea jenkyns.