General Election 2024: Liberal Democrat Charlotte Cane ‘excited’ to win Ely and East Cambridgeshire seat, beating Conservative Lucy Frazer

The newly elected Liberal Democrat MP for Ely and East Cambridgeshire, Charlotte Cane, said she was “excited” by the result of the General Election and by winning her seat.

She won the seat with a total of 17,127 votes, defeating nearest rival Conservative Lucy Frazer by just 495 votes. Ms Frazer, who has been a Cambridgeshire MP for nine years, received 16,632 votes. Labour’s Elizabeth McWilliams received 9,160 votes. Reform UK had a major impact on the result, with Ryan Coogan earning 6,443 votes - a fraction of which, had they gone to Ms Frazer, would have led to her re-election.

Speaking with the Cambridge Independent immediately after the results, Charlotte Cane said: “I'm really excited about it because people have been telling me how concerned they are that they can't get hospital appointments, they can't get a dentist, that rivers have got sewage in them.

“And people have told me some terrible stories about how they're not coping with the cost of living crisis. So I think it's really exciting that I've now got the opportunity to go to Westminster and push for those things to be sorted so that people in East Cambridgeshire can have a better life in five years time and I will really work hard for that.

“Honestly it's never nice defeating someone because, you know, it's a personal story. But I have campaigned for 50 years to get Tories out of power because I'm afraid every time they're in power, they do terrible damage to the people of this country. So in that sense, I'm delighted to have defeated the Tories. But I do recognize that for (Lucy Frazer) personally, it's it's not a pleasant experience.”

However, she was happy to talk about being part of a group of Liberal Democrat MPs heading to Westminster. “That's really exciting. I'm going to be part of a really big group of Lib Dem MPs, and three Lib Dem MPs just in this area,” she said.

“So we're going to be able to push for things like better public transport, which this area so desperately needs. So we'll be a real force to get change at Westminster and with so many of us in Westminster, we'll be able to have a real strong voice and push labour on some of the things that it's weak on, get better environmental protection as well as look at some sort of fair voting system. Because yes, tonight we changed the look of Parliament.

“But we still haven't really given people back the power that a really good fair voting system would give them. And the two child benefit cap. I mean, that's got to get that's just wrong. And there'll be enough of us to really push for that and better support for carers. It's just really exciting.”

Read the reaction from Lucy Frazer.