Labour selects Lisa Forbes to replace Fiona Onasanya in Peterborough

Labour members in Peterborough, whose MP Fiona Onasanya is in jail after being found guilty of lying to avoid a speeding ticket, have selected Lisa Forbes as their new parliamentary candidate.

Forbes, tipped to run for selection by LabourList last month, stood for the seat in 2015. She lost to Tory MP Stewart Jackson by just under 2,000 votes, having cut his majority by more than half.

On Wednesday evening, the Unite trade unionist won the local selection race against local councillor and NHS worker Samantha Hemraj. The contest was fought between just two candidates on an all-women shortlist.

So proud to be selected by members to be our @UKLabour parliamentary candidate for my home city of #Peterborough I’ll work hard to be the strong voice that the people of this great city deserve in Westminster.

— Lisa Forbes (@LisaForbes_) February 21, 2019

In 2013, Forbes wrote a piece for LabourList in which she talked about “struggling with the cost of heating” and living on a council estate as a working-class parliamentary candidate.

Labour won the key marginal seat from the Tories in the 2017 snap election, when Onasanya gained a majority of just 607 votes.

Peterborough firmly backed leaving the EU in 2016, voting by over 60% for Brexit. The Tories have already selected local resident Paul Bristow, who supported Brexit in 2016 and criticised Onasanya for supporting another EU referendum.