Rory Palmer (born 19 November 1981)^[1] is a British Labour Party politician, who also works for the food bank charity Trussell Trust as the East Midlands network lead. He is Labour's candidate for the 2024 England and Wales police and crime commissioner elections in Leicestershire.

He attended Hartland School (merged with Portland School in 2004) in Worksop in north Nottinghamshire.

He studied Social Policy at the University of York between 2000 and 2003,^[2]

Palmer briefly worked for the Institute for Public Policy Research as a research assistant, before working for nearly five years as a parliamentary assistant to the Labour MPs John Mann and Peter Soulsby.^[3] Having first been elected for the Labour Party as a councillor for the Eyres Monsell ward of Leicester City Council in May 2007, he became one of the council's deputy mayors in May 2011.^[4] Palmer worked as senior policy, public affairs and campaigns manager at the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.^[5] He is currently the network lead for the East Midlands Trussell Trust.^[6]

In the 2010 general election, he unsuccessfully stood as the Labour Party candidate in the Bosworth constituency in Leicestershire.^[7] In the 2014 European Parliament election, he was second on the Labour party list in the East Midlands constituency^[8] but was not elected. After the Labour MEP Glenis Willmott announced in July 2017 that she would stand down in October of that year Palmer succeeded her and became an MEP.^[9] He remained in this role until the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020.^[10]

Palmer is a member of the Fabian Society and spent two years on the Executive Committee of the party from 2019 to 2021.^[5] For the upcoming 2024 England and Wales police and crime commissioner elections, Palmer is Labour's candidate for Leicestershire.^[11]