Who is Greater Lincolnshire's new Mayor Dame Andrea Jenkyns?

Andrea Jenkyns was born just across the Humber Bridge in Beverley, near Hull, in 1974.

Her family moved to Lincolnshire when she was seven years old, and she lists New Holland, East Halton and Healing as some of the places she lived.

After leaving school, she went straight into work at Greggs bakery. She worked her way up through retail over the next 15 years to become a senior manager.

Her passion for music led her to become an amateur soprano singer. She has even co-written and released her own classical album, Andrea.

She once performed for the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, and also tutored music part-time in secondary schools.

In her thirties, she retrained and completed degrees in International Relations at the University of Lincoln and economics from the Open University.

Her political career began in 2009 when she was elected to Lincolnshire County Council as a Conservative, representing Boston North West.

She narrowly beat the BNP (British National Party), but lost the seat in the next election to Reform’s predecessor Ukip.

Shortly after, she was selected as the Tory candidate to take on Labour’s Ed Balls in the West Yorkshire seat of Morley and Outwood.

The race was seen as a long-shot for the Conservatives, but Ms Jenkyns managed to pull off an upset, defeating the Shadow Chancellor by less than one per cent.

Her early time in Parliament was dominated by the issue of Brexit, with Ms Jenkyns a strong Leave supporter.

After the EU referendum, this put her at odds with her party leadership. She submitted a letter calling for Prime Minister Theresa May to resign over difficulty in getting the deal done.

In 2017, she married fellow Conservative MP Jack Lopresti. Their son Clifford was born on the day that Article 50 to leave the EU was triggered, earning him the nickname ‘Brexit Clifford’.

Ms Jenkyns became an ally of new PM Boris Johnson and briefly served as the Secretary of State for Skills and Education.

On the day of his resignation speech, she caused controversy by giving the middle finger to protestors, before later saying she was “only human”.

Johnson appointed her a Dame in his resignation honours.

She has frequently spoken out against abuse aimed at politicians, saying she had received “a huge amount” including several death threats.

She has also been open about suffering with fibromyalgia, a condition which causes pain and fatigue across the body, and her son’s special needs.

In 2023, Ms Jenkyns again submitted a letter of no confidence against Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, but this was unsuccessful.

She lost her seat to Labour in the 2024 General Election, with her share of the vote tumbling from 56 to 23 per cent, and only just beating Reform.

She was pictured at the party’s conference that summer, where she said she was trying to help the Conservatives learn from their success.

However, in November 2024 Nigel Farage announced that she had defected to Reform and would stand as the party’s Mayoral candidate in Lincolnshire.

She accused the Conservative county council of wasteful spending and promised to set up a ‘DOGE’ (Department of Government Efficiency) similar to Elon Musk’s in the US.

She has promised to prioritise housing and jobs for local people, and invest in the county’s infrastructure.

Some of the mayoral election campaign was dominated by arguments over whether Ms Jenkyns could stand for mayor as a Yorkshire resident.

She described the attacks as “disingenuous”, saying she rented a home in North Kesteven and wouldn’t move her son full-time until after the campaign.

After a complaint by another candidate, a hearing found that she was legitimately on the Electoral Roll, meaning there was no barrier to her being mayor.

She has appeared with party leader Nigel Farage several times on the campaign trail.