Imran Ahmad Khan

Imran Ahmed Khan delivered one of the big results of election night in 2019 when he won the strongly Vote Leave seat of Wakefield with a majority of 3,358, becoming the first Conservative MP for Wakefield since 1932. A proud Yorkshireman, he was privately educated and attended the Pushkin Institute in Moscow to study Russian, as well as obtaining a Bachelor’s in War Studies. Khan had a varied career that saw him work for the United Nations in Mogadishu, and as a consultant for M&C Saatchi. Having worked as a counter-terrorism expert, he joked that his experience in Somalia and Afghanistan would aid him to build bridges post-Brexit (which he strongly supported). Khan was accused by his opponents of being “parachuted” into the seat of Wakefield: in response, he literally parachuted in. He was claimed as “openly gay” by the LGBT+ Conservatives group, attracting media attention for supposedly becoming the first openly gay Conservative Muslim MP. Khan has since clarified that he is merely a supporter of the group. In 2020, Khan established the Wakefield Together initiative in response to Covid-19; he sourced 110,000 face masks for groups in Yorkshire and Vietnam.