Bill Cash was the founder of the Maastricht Referendum Campaign in the early 1990s, and is the elected Chair of the House of Commons' European Scrutiny Committee.
24 Facts About Bill Cash
2.
Bill Cash has served as a vice-president of the Eurosceptic pressure group Conservatives for Britain, and to this day is one of the strongest critics of the European Union from the Conservative Party.
3.
Bill Cash was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2014 Birthday Honours for political services.
4.
Bill Cash was born in Finsbury, London, to a political family, which included seven Liberal Members of Parliament, including John Bright.
5.
Bill Cash grew up in Sheffield and was educated at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire before attending Lincoln College, Oxford, where he took an MA in History.
6.
Bill Cash married Bridget Mary at Wardour Castle Chapel in Wiltshire on 16 October 1965, and they have two sons and a daughter.
7.
Bill Cash is a distant cousin of country music singer Johnny Cash.
8.
Bill Cash entered Parliament in 1984, when he was elected as MP for Stafford at a by-election in May following the death of Sir Hugh Fraser.
9.
Bill Cash was elected unopposed as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee on 8 September 2010, and has been a member of the Select Committee on European Legislation since 1985.
10.
Bill Cash was elected chairman of the Conservative Backbench Committee on European Affairs.
11.
Bill Cash is chairman of a number of All-Party African committees, including those on Kenya and Uganda.
12.
Bill Cash is chairman of the All-Party Committee on Malaysia.
13.
Bill Cash has served as chairman on the All-Party Group for the Jubilee 2000.
14.
Bill Cash is chairman of the All-Party Sanitation and Water Committee in which he works closely with Wateraid and Tearfund.
15.
Bill Cash introduced the Gender Equality Bill, 2013, which, although only 18th in the Private Members Ballot, was enacted in March 2014.
16.
Bill Cash has been described by Kenneth Clarke as the most "Eurosceptic" Member of Parliament.
17.
In 1993, Bill Cash founded and remains chairman of the eurosceptic European Foundation which was created during the Maastricht Rebellion, the funding for which he organised.
18.
Bill Cash was secretary of the European Reform Forum, and has been vice-president of the Conservative Small Business Bureau.
19.
In November 2011, Bill Cash published a biography of John Bright, whom he described as "one of the greatest parliamentarians of all time", to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Bright's birth.
20.
Bill Cash rejected calls for his resignation and said he was hopeful of getting a fair hearing.
21.
David Cameron was said to have ordered Bill Cash to co-operate or risk having the Conservative whip withdrawn.
22.
Bill Cash was cleared on appeal in February 2010 by former High Court judge and President of the Court of Appeal, the Rt Hon Sir Paul Kennedy.
23.
Bill Cash faced a no-confidence vote by secret ballot by his constituency party on 2 July 2009.
24.
Bill Cash was portrayed by actor Richard Durden in the 2019 HBO and Channel 4 produced drama entitled Brexit: The Uncivil War.