Clarke contested the
Bristol East seat at the
2015 and
2017 general elections as the
Conservative Party candidate but was unsuccessful. The party selected her as the candidate for
Stafford on 26 September 2019. The incumbent Conservative MP
Jeremy Lefroy had previously announced that he would be standing down at the next election. She was elected as Stafford's MP in the
2019 general election with a majority of 14,377 (28.1%), the largest in the constituency's history. On 5 October 2020, Clarke was appointed as the
Prime Ministerial Trade Envoy to
Kenya. She helped implement the UK-Kenya Economic Partnership Agreement which continued the duty-free access to the UK market for Kenyan businesses after
Brexit. The agreement carried forward arrangements agreed by the
European Union and the
East African Community. Clarke resigned this role in July 2022 in protest at Prime Minister
Boris Johnson's leadership. Clarke endorsed
Penny Mordaunt during the
July 2022 Conservative Party leadership election. Clarke took maternity leave following the birth of her first child in August 2022. In February 2023, Clarke stated she was unable to be re-selected as Conservative candidate for Stafford, further stating she intended to appeal to local members in an attempt to stay on as candidate. In March 2023, Clarke was re-adopted as the Conservative candidate for Stafford having won the wider membership vote. In the
2024 general election, she lost her seat to
Leigh Ingham from Labour. == Post-parliamentary career ==