David Adam Coburn (born 11 February 1959) is a Scottish politician and businessman who served as a

Member of the European Parliament A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...

(MEP) for

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

from

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

. A former member of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Coburn was the leader of UKIP Scotland from July 2014 until December 2018. He joined the

Brexit Party Reform UK is a Right-wing populism, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded with support from Nigel Farage in November 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating hard Euroscepticism and a no-deal Brexit, and was bri ...

in 2019, and stood down as an MEP before the

2019 European Parliament election The 2019 European Parliament election was held between 23 and 26 May 2019, the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) represent more than 512 million peopl ...

Early life and career

Coburn was born in Glasgow and educated at The High School of Glasgow after which he studied law at the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

but failed to graduate with a degree. He then worked as an

art dealer An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art, or acts as the intermediary between the buyers and sellers of art. An art dealer in contemporary art typically seeks out various artists to represent, and builds relationshi ...

and City of London financial trader before owning a

freight company Freight companies are companies that specialize in the moving (or "Freight forwarding, forwarding") of freight, or cargo, from one place to another. These companies are divided into several variant sections. For example, international freight for ...

Political career

Coburn contested the South-east

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

constituency of Old Bexley and Sidcup in 2010, and finished in fifth place with 1,532 votes. He also stood in Bexley and Bromley at the

2012 London Assembly election The London Assembly election of 2012 was an election of members to the London Assembly which took place on Thursday, 3 May 2012, the same day as the 2012 London mayoral election, and the 2012 United Kingdom local elections. Although Conservative ...

, finishing in fourth place. Coburn ran and was successful in the

2014 European Parliament election The 2014 European Parliament election was held in the European Union, from 22 to 25 May 2014. It was the 8th parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979, and the first in which the European political parties fielded candid ...

to become a

for the

constituency, as a member of UKIP Scotland. At the end of 2013, UKIP Scotland was dissolved after infighting tore the regional party apart; the party's administrative body was dissolved, Mike Scott-Hayward (the chairman and chief fundraiser) quit, and UKIP leader

Nigel Farage Nigel Paul Farage (; born 3 April 1964) is a British broadcaster and former politician who was List of UK Independence Party leaders, Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Brexit Party#Leaders, Lea ...

fired Lord Christopher Monckton via email. The main party as a whole, and UKIP Scotland focused on supporting the candidates for the upcoming European elections. After Coburn won the seat, he was appointed leader of UKIP Scotland. According to SNP candidate

Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh OBE WS NP (born 5 October 1970) is a Scottish politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ochil and South Perthshire from 2015 to 2017. A former member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Ahmed-Sheikh served ...

, Coburn repeatedly muddled her name at hustings during the European election campaign, when she was standing against him, referring to her as "Pashmina, Jasmine and Tamzin before eventually settling on a combination of 'love', 'dear' and 'honey'." UKIP's Scottish chairman Arthur (Misty) Thackeray responded by saying "How humourless and thin-skinned are these people trying to make faux outrage stories about a slip of the tongue over a name? ... It wasn't mispronounced throughout the entire Euro campaign. It was mispronounced once; if memory serves me correctly, David called her Jasmina." In 2015, Coburn compared Scottish government minister

Humza Yousaf Humza Haroon Yousaf (born 7 April 1985) is a Scottish politician serving as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care since 2021. He is the first non-white and first Muslim cabinet minister in the Scottish Government. A member of the Sco ...

to the convicted terrorist Abu Hamza, later apologising and calling it a "joke". The then UKIP leader

called it a "joke in bad taste" and the then President of the European Parliament,

Martin Schulz Martin Schulz (born 20 December 1955) is a German politician who served as Leader of the Social Democratic Party from 2017 to 2018, and was a Member of the Bundestag (MdB) from 2017 to 2021. Previously he was President of the European Parliame ...

, stated that whereas the remarks were "not worthy of any elected member", he could not act on remarks made outside parliament. Parliamentary candidate Tim Wilson quit the party in response, saying he had been "systematically gagged by the party whip and forbidden to speak about Islam favourably". In April 2015, a account operated by Coburn's office was blocked indefinitely for edit warring over Coburn's Wikipedia article. Coburn claimed he had directed one of his staff to make the changes in order to clear the page of "garbage" and "nonsense"; some news outlets attribute those edits to Coburn himself. In the 2015 general election, Coburn stood for the

Falkirk Falkirk ( gd, An Eaglais Bhreac, sco, Fawkirk) is a large town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, historically within the county of Stirlingshire. It lies in the Forth Valley, northwest of Edinburgh and northeast of Glasgow. Falkirk had a ...

constituency. During the campaign, he came out in favour of

fracking Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "frack ...

in the area, in the face of local concerns. He won 3.0% of the vote. In the

2016 Scottish Parliament election The 2016 Scottish parliament election was held on Thursday, 5 May 2016 to elect 129 members to the Scottish Parliament. It was the fifth election held since the devolved parliament was established in 1999. It was the first parliamentary electi ...

, Coburn was UKIP’s lead candidate for the Highlands and Islands Region. He was unsuccessful, as were all the other UKIP candidates in that election, with the party getting only 2.0% votes nation-wide. In July 2016, Coburn declared his support for

Steven Woolfe Steven Marcus Woolfe (born 6 October 1967) is a British politician who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for North West England from 2014 until 2019. Woolfe was born in Moss Side in Manchester and studied law at Aberystwyth Unive ...

in UKIP's leadership election to replace

. In the 2017 general election, Coburn unsuccessfully ran for

Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath is a county constituency representing the areas around the towns of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, in Fife, Scotland, in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is currently represented by Alba Par ...

, securing just 1.2% of the vote and losing his deposit in the race. On 7 December 2018, Coburn quit UKIP and became an independent MEP. He joined the

in February 2019 but did not seek re-election in the

and stood down as an MEP on 1 July 2019 prior to the conclusion of the UK formally withdrawing from the EU. Following the 2019 general election, Coburn applied to join the

Scottish Conservatives The Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party ( gd, Pàrtaidh Tòraidheach na h-Alba, sco, Scots Tory an Unionist Pairty), often known simply as the Scottish Conservatives and colloquially as the Scottish Tories, is a centre-right political par ...

but was rejected on the instruction of party leader

Jackson Carlaw David Jackson Carlaw (born 12 April 1959) is a Scottish politician who served as Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party from 2019 to 2020. He previously served as Deputy Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party from 2011 to 2019. He has b ...

Personal life

Coburn is gay and was UKIP's second openly gay MEP, after

Nikki Sinclaire Nicole Sinclaire (born 26 July 1968) is a British politician and former leader of the We Demand a Referendum Party who served as a Member of the European Parliament for the West Midlands from 2009 to 2014. She was elected MEP in June 2009, as ...

. When the results of the 2014 European Parliament elections were declared, his permanent address was listed as

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

, London. During the campaign he lived in a rented property in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coburn, David Brexit Party MEPs 1959 births Living people Alumni of the University of Leeds Gay politicians Scottish LGBT politicians MEPs for Scotland 2014–2019 Politicians from Glasgow UK Independence Party MEPs UK Independence Party parliamentary candidates LGBT MEPs for the United Kingdom 21st-century LGBT people British Eurosceptics