The former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Karen Bradley MP, has been awarded a Damehood in the New Year’s honours.
The MP for Staffordshire Moorlands was made Dame Karen Bradley for public and political service.
“I am incredibly humbled to receive this Honour from the King. It is a real privilege to be a Member of Parliament and I went into politics to make a difference and be a loud voice for people in the place I love and call home.
“I am absolutely delighted to receive this Damehood, the Honour is for my family too and I would like to thank them for all their support over the years.”
– Dame Karen Bradley MP, Staffordshire Moorlands
In 2018, she admitted that she was ‘profoundly ignorant of Northern Ireland’s political divisions and “slightly scared” of the place’. Also saying that she was unaware that nationalists didn’t vote for unionists, and that unionists didn’t vote for nationalists.
She told House Magazine that she “didn’t understand things like when elections are fought, for example, in Northern Ireland – people who are nationalists don’t vote for unionist parties and vice versa. So, the parties fight for election within their own community.
“Actually, the unionist parties fight the elections against each other in unionist communities and nationalists in nationalist communities.”
