Julia Reid (née Rudman; born 16 July 1952) is a British politician and a former

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 the

South West England South West England, or the South West of England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of the counties of Bristol, Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly), Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Cities ...

region.

Education and early career

She was educated at Bentley Grammar School, Calne, and the

University of Bath (Virgil, Georgics II) , mottoeng = Learn the culture proper to each after its kind , established = 1886 (Merchant Venturers Technical College) 1960 (Bristol College of Science and Technology) 1966 (Bath University of Technology) 1971 (univ ...

, where she graduated with a degree in

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

, later obtaining a PhD in pharmacology. She worked as a diabetes laboratory researcher at Bath's

Royal United Hospital The Royal United Hospital (RUH) is a major acute-care hospital in the Weston suburb of Bath, England, which lies approximately west of the city centre. The hospital has 565 beds and occupies a site. It is the area's major accident and emergenc ...

until being made redundant in 2009.

Political career

Reid joined the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Fo ...

(SDP) during its inaugural year, 1981, and stayed with the party until its merger with the Liberals in 1988. Reid opposed the pro-EU stance of the new Liberal Democrats and instead joined the continuing SDP, remaining with them until their demise in 1990. In 1993, Reid joined the newly founded

UK Independence Party The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest par ...

(UKIP). She was fourth on the South West region party list for the 2009 European election. In 2010, she contested the new seat of Chippenham in the general election, finishing fourth with 1,783 votes (3.4%). In 2011, she became a research assistant for UKIP MEP Trevor Colman. She was elected in

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 ...

for UKIP in the South West England region of the European Parliament. She contested Chippenham again in 2015, coming third. Reid left UKIP in December 2018 in protest at the party's move to the right and, as the "final straw", the appointment of Tommy Robinson as an advisor. She joined the new

Brexit Party Reform UK is a 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 briefly a significant ...

in February 2019. In local government, Reid was elected to

Calne Calne () is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, southwestern England,OS Explorer Map 156, Chippenham and Bradford-on-Avon Scale: 1:25 000.Publisher: Ordnance Survey A2 edition (2007). at the northwestern extremity of the North Wessex Downs ...

town council in 2013.

References

External links

*
Dr Julia Reid
on

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1952 births Living people Alumni of the University of Bath UK Independence Party parliamentary candidates UK Independence Party MEPs MEPs for England 2014–2019 21st-century women MEPs for England Social Democratic Party (UK) politicians Brexit Party MEPs People from Lewisham People from Wiltshire British Eurosceptics {{UK-MEP-stub