The British Conservatives suffered a colossal defeat in the elections, and the new government of the United Kingdom will be formed by the Labour Party. However, despite the party’s collapse, Alicia Kearns, who stood out on issues related to the Western Balkans, managed to retain her seat in parliament.
Alicia Kearns won the general election seat in Rutland and Stamford with 21,248 votes, or 44 percent.
She is the first representative in the newly created area, established during last year’s boundary review.
“In the past four years, I have not taken any part of our community for granted, and on the eve of the elections, we could not have done more. We knocked on everyone’s doors regardless of the weather conditions – hail and sunburn. Fifty percent of the electoral area is new and challenging for me when people don’t know who you are,” Kearns said.
The total number of votes in that area was 48,747, of which 170 were defective ballots. In the December 2019 elections, Kearns won the Melton and Rutland seat with 63 percent of the vote.
In her previous term, Kearns was the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons of the British Parliament and often commented on political events in Kosovo.
She also held a series of meetings with Kosovo’s political officials, including President Vjosa Osmani and Prime Minister Albin Kurti.
In her activities, she consistently emphasized the risks of destabilization in the Balkans and expressed support for Kosovo.
It should be noted that on July 4, she stated in the British parliament that Serbs were smuggling weapons from Serbia into Kosovo using ambulances and that they were “stored” in the premises of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
“In the [UK] Government, they are aware, with soldiers who have just returned from service in KFOR, that weapons are being smuggled across the border into Orthodox churches using ambulances. When our troops try to get permission to go and retrieve them, the permits take a long time. By the time the permit is granted, surprise, the ambulance shows up at the church and takes the weapons out again,” Kearns claimed.
