Karen Lee (politician)

Karen Elizabeth Lee, born on 15 January 1959, is a British Labour Party politician from Lincoln. She sat in the House of Commons as the Member of Parliament for Lincoln from the 2017 general election to the 2019 general election, taking the seat from the Conservative incumbent Karl McCartney by 1,538 votes and losing it back to him two years later. Before national politics she worked in retail and then trained as a nurse, serving at Lincoln County Hospital for fourteen years, and she was active in UNISON as a learning and workplace representative. She was first elected a city councillor in 2003 and served as Mayor of Lincoln from May 2012 to May 2013. In Parliament she became Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell in July 2017 and Shadow Minister for Fire and Rescue Services in January 2018, where she pressed for fire safety reform after the Grenfell Tower fire. She is placed on the left of the Labour Party and belonged to the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs.