Catherine Anne Blaiklock is an English nationalist politician, financial trader and hotelier who was the founder and first leader of the Brexit Party, a political party established in January 2019 to support a no-deal Brexit.
25 Facts About Catherine Blaiklock
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Catherine Blaiklock was forced to resign as leader in March 2019 when it was disclosed she had made anti-Islamic and racist statements online.
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Catherine Blaiklock founded a Nepali healthcare charity with her ex-husband, an Everest Sherpa.
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Catherine Blaiklock says she detested growing up in Norfolk, describing it as "intellectually devoid".
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Catherine Blaiklock entered Christ Church, Oxford, on a scholarship in 1981, the second year the College admitted women.
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Catherine Blaiklock then went to India on a Commonwealth Scholarship.
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Catherine Blaiklock worked as a financial currency and derivatives trader with Merrill Lynch and other investment banks, and was located in New York, Tokyo and Singapore.
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Catherine Blaiklock returned to Asia and founded a health care charity in Nepal, called Nepal in Need, with her then-husband Gyaljen Sherpa, with which she is still involved, and for which she continues to raise funds.
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Catherine Blaiklock joined UKIP in 2014, having never voted before, and said that she only really entered politics after the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.
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Catherine Blaiklock was the unsuccessful UKIP candidate for Great Yarmouth in the 2017 general election.
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Catherine Blaiklock left UKIP in 2018 when Gerard Batten appointed the English Defence League's Tommy Robinson as a personal advisor.
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On 20 January 2019, Catherine Blaiklock launched a pro-Brexit political party called the Brexit Party, and listed her Norfolk guest house as the headquarters.
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Catherine Blaiklock immediately outlined her desire for former UKIP leader Nigel Farage to lead her new Brexit Party, and on 8 February 2019, Farage announced he would be a candidate for the Brexit Party in any upcoming European Parliament elections.
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Catherine Blaiklock's deleted tweets were recovered by the advocacy group, Hope not Hate.
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Catherine Blaiklock applied to join the Conservative Party on 23 July, the day of Boris Johnson's victory in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election, and received a membership number on 6 August.
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However, a few days after her public disclosure of her application, the Conservative Party, who said her application was subject to final approval, rejected her application, with Catherine Blaiklock saying: "And it was central office who cancelled it even though the local branch knows who I am".
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On 3 July 2021 in The Salisbury Review, Catherine Blaiklock announced she had joined the English Democrats.
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Catherine Blaiklock spoke at their autumn conference that year, and following the stabbing death of Southend West's previous member of Parliament, Sir David Amess, in Leigh-on-Sea on 15 October, they subsequently nominated her in early January 2022 to stand for them at the constituency's by-election, held on 3 February.
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Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and other mainstream political parties chose not to contest the seat out of respect, and Catherine Blaiklock came fourth with 320 votes.
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Catherine Blaiklock is standing for the English Democrats in the 2025 Runcorn and Helsby by-election.
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Catherine Blaiklock posted articles on The Conservative Woman where she discussed introducing hanging for drug dealers and argued that food banks are contributing to obesity in low-income families, who should be eating potatoes, being cheaper and healthier.
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Catherine Blaiklock has been noted for her anti-Islam statements written on a range of conservative websites.
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Catherine Blaiklock's first husband was a Nepali called Gyaljen Sherpa whom she met in 1997 at Everest base camp, and with whom she has two children.
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Catherine Blaiklock's second husband is a British Jamaican, Christopher Kirkpatrick.
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Catherine Blaiklock's husband manages the guest house on a day-to-day basis, and the BBC reported in February 2019 that its Tripadvisor page has been the subject of politically motivated attacks and "malicious trolling", requiring intervention by Tripadvisor.