45 Facts About Edward McMillan-Scott

Edward McMillan-Scott was born on in Cambridge on 15 August 1949 and is a British politician.

Edward McMillan-Scott was a pro-EU Member of the European Parliament for York and Yorkshire and the Humber constituencies from 1984 until 2014.

Shortly before this, Edward McMillan-Scott was telephoned by then UK premier David Cameron, who offered him a peerage the usual reward for leaders of the Conservative group of MEPs but Edward McMillan-Scott declined.

Edward McMillan-Scott then sat as ALDE Vice-President of the European Parliament.

Edward McMillan-Scott received the portfolio for Democracy and Human Rights as well as additionally gaining the Sakharov Prize Network, which underpins the parliament's annual prize for freedom of expression and responsibility for transatlantic relations.

Edward McMillan-Scott was born 15 August 1949 in Cambridge, England, one of seven children of the late Walter, an architect, and the late Elisabeth Edward McMillan-Scott, nee Hudson.

Edward McMillan-Scott worked across the continent, the USSR and Africa as a tour director for a US company for several years.

Edward McMillan-Scott became a member of the Conservative Party in 1967 and joined the European Movement in 1973.

Edward McMillan-Scott was one of the joint regional coordinators for the Yes to Europe campaign in the 1975 referendum on EC membership.

Edward McMillan-Scott was elected as the MEP for York from 1984 to 1994, then MEP for North Yorkshire from 1994 to 1999, and an MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber from 1999 until 2014.

Edward McMillan-Scott was leader of the British Conservative MEPs between September 1997 and December 2001, and attended the Shadow Cabinet on European issues.

Edward McMillan-Scott was re-elected a vice-president in 2007,2009 and 2012.

Edward McMillan-Scott founded the regular forum between the Human Rights and Democracy Network, more than 40 Brussels-based NGOs, and the European Parliament, whose aim is to maximise EU attention to these topics.

Edward McMillan-Scott sat on the Supervisory Group which oversees all the European Parliament's democracy and human rights activities, including election observation.

Edward McMillan-Scott has participated in numerous such missions since 1990.

Edward McMillan-Scott was elected chairman of the European Parliament's largest-ever election observer missions, 30 MEPs, to the Palestinian territories in January 2005 and January 2006.

Edward McMillan-Scott was presented in September 2013 with the Medal of Honour by the Venice-based European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation, comprising 41 universities, "in recognition of his lasting efforts in the promotion and protection of human rights".

Edward McMillan-Scott won the top award, for "Outstanding Contribution" in the 2012 MEP Awards presented by the Parliament magazine, Brussels sister publication of Westminster's House magazine.

Edward McMillan-Scott was present during the October 1993 attempted coup d'etat by old guard communists against President Boris Yeltsin and was the only outside politician to speak at Garry Kasparov's July 2006 "Other Russia" rally.

Edward McMillan-Scott is one of the foremost campaigners for reform in China.

Edward McMillan-Scott successfully nominated Hu Jia for the 2008 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Expression, awarded annually by the European Parliament.

Edward McMillan-Scott has sponsored numerous activities, hearings and resolutions focussed on reform in China.

Edward McMillan-Scott was the first politician to visit Tibet after a three-year blackout, in 1996.

Edward McMillan-Scott has subsequently championed the cause of Tibetan independence, taking part in numerous activities to highlight oppression in Tibet.

In October 2006, Edward McMillan-Scott visited Cuba, where he met Sakharov prize winners, the "Ladies in White", and the late Oswaldo Paya, as well as other dissidents.

Edward McMillan-Scott has since encouraged their campaign for political freedoms.

Edward McMillan-Scott campaigned against organ harvesting of Falun Gong in China.

Edward McMillan-Scott championed Egypt's liberal El Ghad party from 2003, and secured the release of its leader, Dr Ayman Nour, after he was imprisoned for standing against former President Mubarak in 2005.

Edward McMillan-Scott was the first outside politician to get to Cairo at the end of the revolution in February 2011 and made a series of visits to the region in the following months.

Edward McMillan-Scott began campaigning for an EU-wide missing child alert, similar to the Amber Alert system in the US, with Kate and Gerry McCann, parents of missing Madeleine.

In 1999 Edward McMillan-Scott was singled out by "whistleblower" Paul van Buitenen for his role in the 1999 fall of the European Commission.

Edward McMillan-Scott continued to campaign for more secure property rights in the EU's neighbouring states, as buyers move into the Balkans, Turkey and North Africa, where the legal framework is less secure.

Edward McMillan-Scott was a member of every initiative aimed at ending the European Parliament's monthly four-day sessions in Strasbourg since his election in 1984.

Edward McMillan-Scott was awarded the Parliament magazine's 2012 Award for "Outstanding Contribution" partly for his leadership of the campaign, which resulted in a large majority of MEPs voting for their governments to address the issue.

Since 2008 Edward McMillan-Scott has eaten no meat because of its alleged effect on climate change and in December 2009 invited Sir Paul McCartney to a conference called Less Meat = Less Heat, jointly with Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

On 3 December 2013, Edward McMillan-Scott launched EU Food Sense: your right to the right food, a campaign for a sustainable food policy in the EU to replace the wasteful Common Agricultural Policy.

Edward McMillan-Scott was then seated as a non-attached MEP in the European Parliament, though he remained a member of the British Conservative Party.

On 10 August 2009, William Hague wrote a letter to Edward McMillan-Scott, described by the ConservativeHome website as "humiliating".

Edward McMillan-Scott appealed and issued a series of open letters to his constituents but, after his lawyers declared that he could not expect a fair hearing from the Conservative Party, he wrote to David Cameron on 12 March 2010 outlining his reasons for resigning his appeal.

Edward McMillan-Scott stated that his own article had been edited in this way.

Edward McMillan-Scott has long studied totalitarianism; his opposition to the Soviet system was shared by many Conservatives.

On 12 March 2010 Edward McMillan-Scott joined the Liberal Democrats, as he felt that they provided a more suitable home with a focus on human rights and an internationalist agenda.

The Liberal Democrats were a member of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the European Parliament, which Edward McMillan-Scott formally joined on 17 May He was nominated by the Liberal Democrat MEPs, and then the ALDE group, as a candidate for vice-president in January 2012 and was then successfully re-elected.

At the 2015 general election, Edward McMillan-Scott was the Liberal Democrat 'media' or 'paper' candidate for the Yorkshire parliamentary seat of Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford.

Edward McMillan-Scott's home is near Pershore, Worcestershire, where his family moved from Yorkshire in the 18th century.