Julie Minns

Julie Minns is a British Labour Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Carlisle since 2024.

Early life and career
Minns was born in Carlisle. She grew up in the Denton Holme area of the city and attended Trinity School, Carlisle She is a distant cousin of Ernest Lowthian, who was the first Labour politician to stand for election to the UK parliament in the Carlisle constituency, and her great grandfather John Hodgson-Minns, was a Conservative councillor and alderman of the city

Minns was elected as a Councillor onto Lambeth Council in 1998, in the Thornton ward, serving until 2002.

Before entering Parliament, Minns worked as a freelance communications consultant. Prior to this, she worked as head of customer engagement at UK Power Networks, as a parliamentary adviser for the NSPCC and as a parliamentary officer for the disability rights charity Scope. Minns also worked on John Smith's Labour leadership campaign, and as a parliamentary adviser to former Streatham Labour MP Keith Hill. Minns held a part-time consultancy role at public relations, reputation management, and marketing company Bell Pottinger in 2014. The company went out of business in 2017 following a scandal in South Africa. In 2023 Private Eye magazine claimed that Minns had attempted to conceal her employment by the company in her online profile. Minns responded by correcting her profile and confirming that she had left the company over a year before its closure.

Minns was Chair of the Friends of Carlisle Victorian and Turkish Baths community group, which aims to restore and reopen the baths.

Parliamentary career
Minns was selected as the Labour Party candidate for the Carlisle constituency in February 2023, through a local selection process. She was elected to Parliament in the 2024 UK general election with a majority of 5,200 votes and is the constituency's first female MP.