John Longworth (born 14 May 1958) is a British business consultant and politician. He was the director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce from September 2011 until March 2016, when he departed in controversy by breaking with the organisation's line on Brexit on the day of its conference. Longworth was the co-chairman of

Leave Means Leave Leave Means Leave was a pro-Brexit, Eurosceptic political pressure group organisation that campaigned and lobbied for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union following the 'Leave' result of the EU referendum on 23 June 2016. The campaig ...

with

Richard Tice Richard James Sunley Tice (born 13 September 1964) is a British businessman and right wing politician who has been Leader of Reform UK since 6 March 2021. Tice was CEO of the real estate group CLS Holdings from 2010 to 2014, after which he bec ...

. He was 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

Yorkshire and the Humber Yorkshire and the Humber is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. The population in 2011 was 5,284,000 with its largest settlements being Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Hull, and York. It is ...

from 2019 to 2020.

Early life

John Longworth was born in May 1958 and was educated at

Smithills School Smithills School is a mixed secondary school located in Smithills, Bolton, Greater Manchester. Previously a community school administered by Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council, Smithills School converted to academy status on 1 January 2014. ...

, Bolton, and the

University of Salford , caption = Coat of ArmsUniversity of Salford , mottoeng = "Let us seek higher things" , established = 1850 - Pendleton Mechanics Institute 1896 – Royal Technical Institute, Salford 1967 – gained ...

, where he obtained bachelor's and master's degrees. He is a chartered company secretary and has a postgraduate certificate in microbiology.

Career

A media commentator and writer, he now advises organisations in the financial sector and others and is on the Advisory Councils of Hottinger Group, the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Advisory Board of Economists for Free Trade. In March 2016, he became the only leader of a major business group, the BCC, to back leaving the EU. Since this went against the position the BCC and its members had agreed to take on the referendum he was suspended as Director General. He subsequently resigned and volunteered to lead the business campaign to leave the EU, as chairman of the Vote Leave Business Council. In 2016, he became the co-chairman of Leave Means Leave, a lobby group set up to promote a hard Brexit. In October 2017, Longworth and

, Treasurer and Co-Chairman of

, were jointly placed at Number 90 on the list of 'The Top 100 Most Influential on the Right'.

Political career

On 15 April 2019, Longworth announced he would be standing as a candidate for the

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 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 peop ...

, he was elected a

(MEP) for

. In July 2019 he became a member of the

European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) is a committee of the European Parliament which is responsible for the regulation of financial services, the free movement of capital and payments, taxation and competition policies, oversight ...

and of the

European Parliament Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection The Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) is a committee of the European Parliament. Work of the committee The committee is responsible for: * coordination at Community level of national legislation in the sphere of th ...

. He was expelled from the Brexit Party and lost the

party whip A whip is an official of a political party whose task is to ensure party discipline in a legislature. This means ensuring that members of the party vote according to the party platform, rather than according to their own individual ideology ...

in December 2019 for "repeatedly undermining their general election strategy."

Honours

He has an honorary doctorate from the private

BPP University BPP University is a private university in the United Kingdom. History Name The university takes its name from the founders Alan Brierley, Richard Price and Charles Prior, who in 1975 set up Brierley Price Prior to train accountancy students. ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Longworth, John 1958 births 20th-century British businesspeople 21st-century British businesspeople Alumni of the University of Salford Brexit Party MEPs Businesspeople from Lancashire Conservative Party (UK) MEPs Living people MEPs for England 2019–2020 People from Bolton