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Alex Bulat | |
|---|---|
| Citizenship | Romanian and British |
| Known for | first English county councillor of Romanian descent |
| Political party | Labour |
| Movement | Young Europeans |
Alexandra Bulat is a British-Romanian politician who has served on Cambridgeshire County Council since 2021, representing Abbey ward from 2021 to 2025, and St Ives South & Needingworth ward since 2025. She was a Labour party candidate in the 2004 General Election. [1] She is the first English county councillor of Romanian descent. [2]
Bulat was mainly raised in Romania although she spent a year in the UK as a young child while her father worked for the NHS. Returning as a student, she initially had a poor command of English. [3]
Bulat is a Labour Party councillor on Cambridgeshire County Council. She was elected at the 2021 local elections for Abbey ward winning 41.77% of the vote and a majority of 205 despite a 25.76% increase in the Green party votes compared to the previous election, [4] and has represented St Ives South & Needingworth ward since 2025. In March 2024, Bulat was selected by Labour as the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Huntingdon for the 2024 General Election on 4 July 2024 and came second with 16,758 votes, behind the Conservative candidate Ben Obese-Jecty with 18,257. [5]
Dr Bulat won the University College London's (UCL) Provost Public Engagement ' Find Your Voice' Award in 2020 for public engagement by an early career researcher, and a founder member of 3million and Young Europeans network. She volunteers with charity Settled which helps EU people on application for 'settled status', following the UK Brexit arrangements. [6] She wrote a blog for the National Institute of Economic and Social Research in 2019, [7] and commented in Al Jazeera to on the freedom of movement arrangements finally agreed for Gibraltar on 31 December 2020. [8]
Bulat spoke about incipient racism in Romanian language posters about shoplifting appearing in British supermarkets. And undertook an analysis of the attitudes to migration identified in campaign policy fliers for the EU Referendum. [9] She was one of the 33 Labour councillors who signed an open letter to The Guardian calling for a confirmatory referendum on Brexit. [10]
As an outspoken advocate of EU citizens rights and a dual British-Romanian citizen, she shared her experiences with The London Economic Review, BBC and at Labour party events. [11] [12] And queried the route to citizenship during the Brexit transition period, as reported in The Independent. [13]
At the closing date in June 2021, for those not yet confirmed to have settled status in the UK, Bulat and others commented on a late surge in awareness and the backlog in applications risking a loss of rights. [14] BBC reported her views that young Europeans would lose their rights, and commented on the need for a 'physical proof of status'. [15] Her research was into attitudes to migrant workers who may have had to take work that could be considered 'low skilled' compared to the future 'points system' and how that may block access to specific labour markets currently relying on EU migrants in 2019. [16] In the debate on voter identification for voting in the UK, [17] Bulat and others produced a report on the current and potential impact on under-represented groups in London. [18]
As vice-chair of the County Council committee looking at paid family leave, when a motion was passed, she said "For me this is a matter of principle and basic rights, especially if we want to improve diversity in local government". [19]
Her doctorate was based on research on exploring whether local contact affected attitudes towards EU migrants in 'a comparison of British, Romanian and Polish residents' views in two English local authorities in the context of Brexit'. [20] Her studies included ephemera in the British Library where her case study analysis identified a bias in the materials against migrants from certain EU countries. [21] A recent collaboration on EU citizens’ perceived identity is conducted with Professor Tanja Bueltmann of Strathclyde University. [22] She was later co-author of a study funded by EU Horizon Fund to study the impact of 'growing up abroad' as which compared Italian and more recent Romanian cohorts. [23]
Along with a doctorate from University College London, Bulat also has a Masters degree from Cambridge and an undergraduate degree from the University of Sussex. [3]