Subscriptions
Brexit Party MEPs will now sit in Europe’s highest law-making body as the elected representatives of the people of Britain. Who are they and why does it matter?
Compiled using public records and media sources.
In a strange twist to last month’s European Parliament elections, a new cluster of Brexit party MEPs have been elected to the very institution they claim to despise. They harbour deep links to organisations who wish to destroy Britain’s relationship with Europe. Several also hold positions of power within business and industry, potentially bringing personal agendas that risk significant conflicts between private interests and public good.
They will now sit like toxic chocolates at the very heart of European power. Despite the fact that they actually are not a majority in terms of the Remain: Leave balance within the British delegation, their disruptive agenda has potential to do harm, and some transparency regarding their interests is called for.
Remain – Leave balance
The Brexit Party won 29 of the 73 British seats in the European Parliament elections. It has been claimed that this is a victory, but when the facts are analysed, the claim can be challenged. The 29 seats reflect an increase of just 5 over the 24 MEPs elected in 2014 for Farage’s old party, UKIP. Even when the 4 Conservatives are added, it makes a total Leave position of 33.
By contrast, the combination of 16 Liberal Democrats ( +15) and 11 Green/SNP/Plaid Cymru (+5) with 10 Labour (who are pro-EU), creates the basis for a strong Remain coalition of 37, (38 if joined by Sinn Fein’s Martina Anderson). It’s a turnaround from the 2014 result, where the combined Remain groups totalled 28 and the combined UKIP/Brexit Party / Conservatives came to 44. Arguably, this is a re-balancing of British MEPs towards the Remain position, and it should bode well to improve British influence in the European Parliament.
A new cluster
However, it’s not just about numbers. The underlying factors around the agenda of the Brexit Party are potentially damaging to British interests.
The European Parliament is used to the grandstanding of Nigel Farage, using its media facilities for his own aggrandisment and a voting record that takes the mickey out of the trust that his constituents have placed in him. For example, he only voted in 40% of roll call votes.
In the 2014 Parliament, the UKIP MEPs were mostly ordinary individuals who were well-meaning, but ineffectual, and just voted ‘no’ to everything. By May 2019, 11 of these (excluding Farage himself) had transferred from UKIP to the Brexit Party. All but 2 of them – Jonathan Bullock and Nathan Gill – did not stand again for election in 2019. This in itself is unusual.
The private and business dealings of these new Brexit Party MEPs would seem to risk a conflict of interest. They will have to be declared in accordance with the European Parliament Rules of Procedure.
However, the new bunch of Brexit Party MEPs are quite different. They are already powerful, and rich, and they have a destructive agenda. There does not appear to have been a formal selection process for the Brexit Party, as the other parties did. It seems that some of the Brexit Party candidates were found for the party by a public relations company – a highly unorthodox method of seeking people for elected office. The Brexit Party list was the announced at the last minute before the deadline on Friday 26 April enabling candidates to be switched around in response to other Parties’ lists that had been announced earlier in the week – all others had announced their candidates by 24th April.
Curiously, the former office manager for Jonathon Arnott MEP, is now an elected MEP, whereas Arnott did not stand. John Edward David Tennant, elected for the North-East, is said to have been a member of UKIP team for the past 10 year and close to Nigel Farage.
Leave Leaders
The two Leave campaign leaders, Richard Tice and John Longworth, have both been elected to the European Parliament. Longworth and Tice are co-directors of Leave Means Leave, the hard right campaign for Britain to trade under WTO rules. Tice is a property millionaire and director of the Brexit Party and understood to have taken charge of the Brexit Party’s election campaign. He was a director of Leave.eu at the time of the 2016 referendum. Leave.eu was fined for breaking data protection law and separately fined by the electoral commission over breach of electoral law.
It has also been referred to the Metropolitan Police regarding illegal overspending. There are many unanswered questions regarding the sources of Leave.eu funding, a matter which is strictly regulated under British law. Allegations persist that the 2016 Leave campaign was procured through corrupt and illegal processes. Although there have been calls for an inquiry, one has yet to take place. Now that he has been elected to public office, greater transparency is called for regarding his role.
Leave Media
It’s notable that the Brexit Party got a media operation up and running very quickly, in a way that potentially wrong-footed other Parties. The new batch of Brexit Party MEPs includes some who previously worked on public relations or media activities for UKIP or Leave campaign groups.
Brian Monteith, elected for the North-East, lives in Trevien, France and is a PR consultant who worked with Leave.eu during the 2016 referendum. He is on the advisory council to the Freedom Association, a right-leaning group that runs the Better Off Out campaign, where another of the Brexit Party candidates, Andrew Allison, is head of campaigns (Mr Allison was not elected).
Alexandra Lesley Phillips (who should not be confused with the Green Party’s new MEP for the South-East, who is also called Alexandra Phillips) was previously UKIP’s press spokesperson. She is said to have left the role with UKIP after an incident involving Nigel Farage’s wife