39 Facts About Robert Kilroy-Silk

Robert Michael Kilroy-Silk was born on Robert Michael Silk; 19 May 1942 and is an English former politician and broadcaster.

Robert Kilroy-Silk left the House of Commons in 1986 in order to present a new BBC Television daytime talk show, Kilroy, which ran until 2004.

Robert Kilroy-Silk returned to politics, serving as a Member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2009.

Robert Kilroy-Silk had a significant role in the mainstreaming of Eurosceptic politics in the UK and has been dubbed 'The Godfather of Brexit'.

Robert Kilroy-Silk's mother Rose remarried in 1946, to family friend John Francis Kilroy, a car worker at the Rootes plant in Warwickshire.

Robert Kilroy-Silk adopted the young boy, who from then used the surname Kilroy-Silk.

Robert Kilroy-Silk failed his eleven-plus examination, for entry to selective schools, in 1953.

Robert Kilroy-Silk attended the London School of Economics to study politics and economics.

In 1963, Robert Kilroy-Silk married Jan Beech, daughter of a shop steward.

Robert Kilroy-Silk published a theoretical work, Socialism since Marx, in 1972.

Robert Kilroy-Silk moved to Warleigh House in Plymouth in 2015 with his wife.

At the February 1974 general election, Robert Kilroy-Silk was elected as a Labour MP for the Ormskirk constituency in Lancashire.

Robert Kilroy-Silk remained its MP until its abolition at the 1983 general election, when he was elected to represent the new Knowsley North seat; he held this until his resignation from the House of Commons in 1986.

Robert Kilroy-Silk wrote that the function of government, particularly a Labour government, was.

Robert Kilroy-Silk was appointed Shadow Home Affairs spokesman, resigning in 1985.

Robert Kilroy-Silk wrote a book about his experiences, entitled Hard Labour, and subsequently left the Labour Party.

In 2004, Robert Kilroy-Silk was recruited to the UK Independence Party.

Robert Kilroy-Silk stood on the UKIP list for the East Midlands constituency and was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in the second seat for his region.

The next day, in an interview on Breakfast with Frost, Robert Kilroy-Silk expressed ambition to lead UKIP and criticised the party's leader Roger Knapman.

Only a minority were sympathetic to him; Robert Kilroy-Silk did not think this was significant, as he believed that too few party members had been consulted.

On 27 October 2004, Robert Kilroy-Silk officially announced that he had withdrawn from the UKIP whip in the European Parliament, branding the party "incompetent".

On 3 November 2004, Robert Kilroy-Silk said he intended to be leader by Christmas, though this would have been impossible under the rules.

On 20 January 2005, Robert Kilroy-Silk announced that he had left UKIP; he had been a member for nine months.

On 30 January 2005 Robert Kilroy-Silk launched a new political party Veritas, promising to take the fight to the "supercilious metropolitan elite".

Robert Kilroy-Silk tried to press charges against a man who, he said, "smashed a bottle of water against the side of his head" while the politician was being interviewed by a European television crew outside a supermarket.

Robert Kilroy-Silk, who was elected to the European Parliament on the UKIP list, remained a member of the Veritas Party, but sat as an Independent MEP.

Robert Kilroy-Silk's name was absent from the list of candidates published on 7 May 2009 for the 2009 European Parliament election.

Robert Kilroy-Silk's membership was terminated when the European Parliament reconvened on 17 July 2009.

The BBC cancelled the Kilroy show in January 2004 after an opinion article, entitled "We owe Arabs nothing", by Robert Kilroy-Silk was published in the Sunday Express on 4 January 2004.

Robert Kilroy-Silk's suspension was precipitated by a flurry of web messages and emails circulated by various Muslim organisations notifying people of the outrage.

Bodi wrote that Robert Kilroy-Silk should be prosecuted for incitement to racial hatred.

Robert Kilroy-Silk said that Kilroy-Silk had written statements critical of Muslims in 1989, during the Salman Rushdie affair, and in a 1995 article in the Daily Express.

Robert Kilroy-Silk said the politician was "an advocate of freedom of expression" and that he agreed with much of what Kilroy-Silk had said about Arab regimes.

Robert Kilroy-Silk's talk show Kilroy started on 24 November 1986.

In 2001, Robert Kilroy-Silk hosted a television programme on ITV1 called Shafted.

Robert Kilroy-Silk appeared as a guest on Have I Got News for You on 30 April 2004.

In early February 2005, Robert Kilroy-Silk worked on a Channel 4 television programme called Kilroy and the Gypsies.

Robert Kilroy-Silk spent a week living with a family of Romany Gypsies at a campsite in Bedfordshire to explore their lives.

In November 2008 Derek Clark MEP complained that Robert Kilroy-Silk was taking his parliamentary wage while being paid to appear in the reality TV show I'm a Celebrity.