Miatta Fahnbulleh, a United Kingdom based economist of Sierra Leonean Origin has been elected as Member of Parliament for Peckham in the 2024 United Kingdom general election.

She won after securing 22,813 votes for the Labour party on Thursday.

Fahnbullah was born in Liberia to a Sierra-Leonean mother and a Liberian father. The family fled at the onset of the First Liberian Civil War in 1986 to the UK where they applied for asylum.

Until December 2023, she was the Chief Executive of the New Economics Foundation. Miatta has a wealth of experience in developing and delivering policy to empower communities and change people’s lives.

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She has been at the forefront of generating new ideas on reshaping our economy inside government and out. Prior to joining NEF she was Director of Policy & Research at the Institute of Public Policy Research. Before this, she has worked at senior levels for the Leader of the Opposition, the Cabinet Office, and the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit.

“For me, it’s a chance to represent a constituency that means a great deal to me.”, Fahnbulleh said on her official campaign website.  “It was in the Sierra Leonean community here in Peckham where my family found refuge when we fled from West Africa when I was child.

“It was this community that taught me the values of compassion and solidarity that have shaped my politics. And it was here I first understood just how much the system is failing all of us. No matter how hard people work, how talented they are, they can still face poverty and be denied the opportunities they deserve.

Giving her victory speech, Fahnbulleh said: “Thank you to the people of Peckham. You have placed your trust in me and I will work day and night to repay that faith.

“I promise to be rooted in this community and to fight for you. I will be your loudest voice, your fiercest defender, and your proudest champion and together we will rise.”