1. Roger Helmer was born on 25 January 1944 and is a British politician and businessman.
23 Facts About Roger Helmer
1. 2.
Roger Helmer was a Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands region from 1999 to 2017.
3.
Roger Helmer has described himself as a eurosceptic and is a supporter of the Better Off Out campaign.
4.
In September 1998, following his selection as a candidate for the Conservative Party in the East Midlands, Roger Helmer left his job as managing director of a Leicester textile company, Donisthorpe Ltd, to campaign full-time ahead of the 1999 euro-elections, and took up his new role as an MEP immediately after his election.
5.
Roger Helmer was re-elected as a Conservative MEP for the East Midlands Region in 2004.
6.
Roger Helmer was suspended from the Conservative Party whip on 26 May 2005 after voting against party instructions on a motion to censure the European Commission and openly criticising his delegation leader, Timothy Kirkhope, in a parliamentary debate; the Conservative party whip was restored on 13 September 2006, but he remained Non-Inscrit.
7.
Roger Helmer joined the European Conservatives and Reformists, with the other Conservative MEPs, in July 2009.
8.
Roger Helmer was appointed Adam Smith Scholar in 2005 by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council.
9.
Roger Helmer became chairman of the libertarian pressure group, The Freedom Association, in April 2007.
10.
On 12 October 2011, Roger Helmer announced that he would resign from the European Parliament at the end of the year, citing "increasing disillusion with the attitudes of the Conservative Party" as the main reason, although stating that his "twelve-and-a-half years banging my head against the same brick wall in Brussels is perhaps long enough".
11.
Roger Helmer expected to be replaced by Rupert Matthews who was next on the Conservative party list in the 2009 European Parliament election.
12.
Roger Helmer delayed standing down, before it was announced on 2 March 2012 that he had defected from the Conservatives to the UK Independence Party.
13.
Roger Helmer faced accusations of hypocrisy as he had demanded in November 2000, that MEP Bill Newton Dunn immediately resign as a result of his move from Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats.
14.
On 6 April 2014, Roger Helmer visited the congress of Conservative People's Party of Estonia in Tallinn and gave a speech in support of Euroscepticism in Estonia.
15.
On 13 June 2017, Roger Helmer announced he would be resigning from the European Parliament, citing age and health status as reasons, but amid allegations of misuse of public funds.
16.
Roger Helmer furthermore commented that "once you start to tamper with the institution of marriage, you get into some very murky water indeed", and that such a move could set a precedent that would lead to the legalisation of communal marriage and incest.
17.
Roger Helmer grew up in an age when homosexuality was actually imprisonable, and he had a certain set of views which he maintained for many years which he now says he accepts the world's moved on and he's relaxed about.
18.
Roger Helmer later told The Independent that his views had been misrepresented by the paper's editor.
19.
In October 2014, Roger Helmer was photographed visiting a "sleazy massage parlour" in Lutterworth.
20.
Roger Helmer was criticised in an article in the Daily Telegraph on 10 February 2010 regarding MEPs' pensions.
21.
Roger Helmer replied, in a letter to the Daily Telegraph printed on 13 February 2010, that accusations relating to protecting his pension rights, protecting his anonymity and seeking further public funding for pension contributions were false.
22.
In December 2010, still as a Conservative MEP, Roger Helmer attended the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference and spent EU funds on a billboard campaign in his constituency criticising climate change policy.
23.
In 2009, Roger Helmer said he would support the repeal of the hunting ban, and said that he used to enjoy hare coursing.