Roger Mark Casale (born 22 May 1960) was the Labour Member of Parliament for

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * W ...

, England from 1997 to 2005. In June 2013, Casale founded New Europeans, a pro- EU campaigning group.

Early life

He was educated at

King's College School King's College School, also known as Wimbledon, KCS, King's and KCS Wimbledon, is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Wimbledon, London, Wimbledon, southwest London, England. The s ...

, Hurstpierpoint College,

Brasenose College, Oxford Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The l ...

, and

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

Political career

He gained the

seat at the 1997 general election, one of the surprise results of the Labour landslide as Wimbledon had only ever previously been won by the Labour Party at the 1945 general election. Casale successfully retained the seat with a slightly increased majority at the 2001 general election but lost it to the

Conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilizati ...

at the 2005 general election.

After Parliament

Since losing his seat Casale has run his own parliamentary advisors company, Roger Casale Associates Ltd. In June 2013, Casale founded New Europeans, a pro-EU campaigning group. In May 2017, Casale resigned from Labour in order to contest the

Vauxhall Vauxhall ( , ) is an area of South London, within the London Borough of Lambeth. Named after a medieval manor called Fox Hall, it became well known for the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. From the Victorian period until the mid-20th century, Va ...

constituency, held by Kate Hoey, a pro-Brexit Labour MP. For this purpose, Casale announced the creation of Yes2Europe as a new political party. Lambeth for Europe, the local pro-EU group, did not endorse Casale, instead opting for the Liberal Democrat candidate, George Turner. In the end, Casale did not contest the constituency in the 2017 general election. In 2019, Casale joined

Change UK Change UK, founded as The Independent Group (TIG) and later The Independent Group for Change, was a British centrist, pro–European Union political party, which lasted for ten months in 2019. Established in February and formally recognised ...

and became a candidate for the party in the

2019 European Parliament election The 2019 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 23 and 26 May 2019. It was the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) we ...

, contesting the seven-member constituency of

East of England East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sunrise, Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact ...

. The party polled 3.7%; he was the last candidate on Change UK's party list for the constituency and was not elected.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Casale, Roger 1960 births Living people People educated at King's College School, London People educated at Hurstpierpoint College Johns Hopkins University alumni Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1997–2001 UK MPs 2001–2005 Change UK politicians