Patrick James O'Flynn (born 29 August 1965) is an English journalist and

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) politician who served as

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 East of England 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 ...

. He was elected for the

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) but defected to the SDP in November 2018. Since 2019 he has written frequently for ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

''.

Early life and journalism

O'Flynn read economics at

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...

, graduating in 1987. He subsequently received a diploma in journalism from

City, University of London City, University of London, is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, and a member institution of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1894 as the Northampton Institute, and became a university when The City Univ ...

. He then worked as chief political commentator and then political editor at the '' Daily Express''.

Political career

O'Flynn was the

spokesperson on the economy until 19 May 2015. He was the UKIP candidate in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

at the general election in 2015 and came fifth, with 5.2 per cent of the vote. Afterwards he described UKIP leader

Nigel Farage Nigel Paul Farage (; born 3 April 1964) is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party (renamed Reform UK in 2021) from 2 ...

as "snarling, thin-skinned and aggressive". O'Flynn was the running-mate for Lisa Duffy in the

September 2016 UK Independence Party leadership election September is the ninth month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars, the third of four months to have a length of 30 days, and the fourth of five months to have a length of fewer than 31 days. September in the Northern H ...

. He left the UKIP frontbench in July 2017, believing that the party no longer supported his

centrist Centrism is a political outlook or position involving acceptance or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy while opposing political changes that would result in a significant shift of society strongly to Left-w ...

economic policies. He joined the SDP in November 2018. He cited UKIP leader

Gerard Batten Gerard Joseph Batten (born 27 March 1954) is a British politician who served as the Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2018 to 2019. He was a founding member of the party in 1993, and served as a Member of the European Parliament ( ...

's appointment of Tommy Robinson (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) as an adviser as a key reason for his departure from the party. He said of his decision to join the SDP: "like many on the communitarian wing of KIP I have decided to join the resurgent SDP, which campaigned for Brexit during the referendum and espouses broad and moderate pro-nation state political values that I – and I believe many of our voters from 2014 – will be delighted to endorse." In defecting, O'Flynn became the first MEP to sit in the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...

for the SDP (though in 1984 Michael Gallagher MEP had joined the original SDP). O'Flynn stood as the SDP candidate in the 2019 Peterborough by-election, but received only 135 votes (0.4 per cent), and lost to Lisa Forbes. O'Flynn narrowly avoided a repeat of the 1990 Bootle by-election result by beating the

Monster Raving Loony Party The Official Monster Raving Loony Party (OMRLP) is a political party established in the United Kingdom in 1982 by the musician David Sutch, also known as "Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow", or simply "Lord Sutch". It is notable for its ...

candidate, who polled 112. In April 2021 O'Flynn started the Snap, a podcast with Michael Heaver.

References

1965 births Alumni of City, University of London Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Daily Express people English people of Irish descent Living people MEPs for England 2014–2019 People from Cambridge Social Democratic Party (UK, 1990–present) MEPs UK Independence Party MEPs UK Independence Party parliamentary candidates British Eurosceptics {{UK-MEP-stub