John Longworth (businessman)

A media commentator and writer, he now advises organisations in the financial sector and others and is on the Advisory Councils of Hottinger Group, the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Advisory Board of Economists for Free Trade.^{[citation needed][6]}

In March 2016, he became the only leader of a major business group, the BCC, to back leaving the EU. Since this went against the position the BCC and its members had agreed to take on the referendum he was suspended as Director General. He subsequently resigned and volunteered to lead the business campaign to leave the EU, as chairman of the Vote Leave Business Council. In 2016, he became the co-chairman of Leave Means Leave, a lobby group set up to promote a hard Brexit.^[7][8][9] In October 2017, Longworth and Richard Tice, Treasurer and Co-Chairman of Leave Means Leave, were jointly placed at Number 90 on the list of 'The Top 100 Most Influential on the Right'.^[10]

On 15 April 2019, Longworth announced he would be standing as a candidate for the Brexit Party.^[11] In the 2019 European Parliament election, he was elected a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Yorkshire and the Humber. In July 2019 he became a member of the European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and of the European Parliament Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection.^[12] He was expelled from the Brexit Party and lost the party whip in December 2019 for "repeatedly undermining their general election strategy."^[13]

He has an honorary doctorate from the private BPP University.^{[14][better source needed]}