Julia Reid (née Rudman; born 16 July 1952) is a British politician and a former
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.
When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Commu ...
(MEP) for the
South West England
South West England, or the South West of England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of the counties of Bristol, Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly), Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Cities and ...
region.
Education and early career
She was educated at
Bentley Grammar School, Calne, and the
University of Bath
(Virgil, Georgics II)
, mottoeng = Learn the culture proper to each after its kind
, established = 1886 (Merchant Venturers Technical College) 1960 (Bristol College of Science and Technology) 1966 (Bath University of Technology) 1971 (univ ...
, where she graduated with a degree in
biochemistry
Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology ...
, later obtaining a PhD in
pharmacology
Pharmacology is a branch of medicine, biology and pharmaceutical sciences concerned with drug or medication action, where a drug may be defined as any artificial, natural, or endogenous (from within the body) molecule which exerts a biochemi ...
. She worked as a diabetes laboratory researcher at Bath's
Royal United Hospital
The Royal United Hospital (RUH) is a major acute-care hospital in the Weston suburb of Bath, England, which lies approximately west of the city centre. The hospital has 565 beds and occupies a site. It is the area's major accident and emergen ...
until being made redundant in 2009.
Political career
Reid joined the
Social Democratic Party
The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology.
Active parties
Fo ...
(SDP) during its inaugural year, 1981, and stayed with the party until its merger with the
Liberals in 1988. Reid opposed the pro-EU stance of the new
Liberal Democrats and instead joined the
continuing SDP, remaining with them until their demise in 1990.
In 1993, Reid joined the newly founded
UK Independence Party
The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), member ...
(UKIP). She was fourth on the South West region party list for the
2009 European election. In 2010, she contested the new seat of
Chippenham
Chippenham is a market town in northwest Wiltshire, England. It lies northeast of Bath, west of London, and is near the Cotswolds Area of Natural Beauty. The town was established on a crossing of the River Avon and some form of settlement is ...
in the general election, finishing fourth with 1,783 votes (3.4%). In 2011, she became a research assistant for UKIP MEP
Trevor Colman
Bernard Trevor Colman (27 August 1941 – 22 March 2022) was a former UK Independence Party politician. He was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South West England. He represented the 2nd seat in the constituency.
Biography
He was ...
. She was elected in
2014
File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...
for UKIP in the South West England region of the European Parliament. She contested Chippenham again in
2015
File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the April ...
, coming third.
Reid left UKIP in December 2018 in protest at the party's move to the right and, as the "final straw", the appointment of
Tommy Robinson as an advisor.
She joined the new
Brexit Party
Reform UK is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded with support from Nigel Farage in November 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating hard Euroscepticism and a no-deal Brexit, and was briefly a significant po ...
in February 2019.
In local government, Reid was elected to
Calne
Calne () is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, southwestern England,OS Explorer Map 156, Chippenham and Bradford-on-Avon Scale: 1:25 000.Publisher: Ordnance Survey A2 edition (2007). at the northwestern extremity of the North Wessex Downs ...
town council in 2013.
References
External links
*
Dr Julia Reidon
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
1952 births
Living people
Alumni of the University of Bath
UK Independence Party parliamentary candidates
UK Independence Party MEPs
MEPs for England 2014–2019
21st-century women MEPs for England
Social Democratic Party (UK) politicians
Brexit Party MEPs
People from Lewisham
People from Wiltshire
British Eurosceptics
{{UK-MEP-stub