Former Lincoln MP Karen Lee says she wants to stand again at the next election

Lincoln’s former MP has said that she will put her name forward to stand for the Labour Party again at the next election.

Karen Lee had represented the constituency since 2017 but was defeated at last December’s General Election by the Conservative candidate Karl McCartney.

But speaking to The Linc over a month on from that election, Karen Lee said that she wanted to continue her career in politics.

She said: “I’m still working out which bits of my politics I want to carry on with.

“I still want to be an active trade unionist and I would like to put my name forward for the selection process when that happens next time.

“There’s no guarantee that I’ll be picked because somebody else might be picked but I’d certainly put my name forward

“I’m sure the first time that Lincoln Labour are back out campaigning on the door step I’ll be out there with them – it’d be a bit odd if I wasn’t after 25 years.”

The next General Election is currently scheduled for 2024 and an election before then looks unlikely given the Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s parliamentary majority of 80 – the largest since Margaret Thatcher in 1987.

Karen Lee achieved over 20,000 votes in Lincoln at the last election, below the more than 24,000 votes that put Karl McCartney back in office who had previously represented the city from 2010-17.

Despite what she described as a “strong” campaign, which included visits from senior Labour Party figures including Baroness Chakrabarti and John McDonnell, Karen Lee says that the election was dominated by Brexit.

She said: “I actually think we ran a really good campaign and I had a lot of people coming out and we were out several times a day.

“I also think the hustings events went well for me but at the end of the day it was down to Brexit.

“I don’t think that I could have run my campaign any differently because it was absolutely about Brexit and when you look at the way the results came in and what was happening where – that bore that out.”

Asked to list her proudest achievements whilst in office, Karen Lee spoke about her “working class” background.

She said: “I’m just a kid from a council estate and I’m a working class person.

“I’ve still got to find a job because nobody pays my bills but I went to Westminster and I proved that you don’t have to be born privileged to go to Westminster and I hope that gives some sort of inspiration to other working class kids who think that maybe they can’t do it because actually you can.

“The whole thing was wonderful – to have the opportunity to go to Westminster to represent the place where I was born and to meet the people that I met and to do the things that I did was an honour and a privilege.”