Edward Mc Millan-Scott

Edward Mc Millan-Scott

Edward Hugh Christian McMillan-Scott (born 15 August 1949) is a British Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Yorkshire and the Humber constituency. He has been elected four times as European Parliament Vice-President since 2004. His main portfolio remains Human Rights and Democracy. He was first elected as an MEP in 1984. McMillan-Scott was a Conservative until a dispute with David Cameron over the British premier's controversial new EU alliance: he joined the Liberal Democrats in 2010.

On 25 September McMillan-Scott won the top award, for ‘Outstanding Contribution’ in the 2012 MEP Awards presented by the Parliament magazine, Brussels sister publication of Westminster’s House magazine. The citation referred to his achievements in democracy and human rights, especially his active involvement in the Arab Spring, as well as his leadership of the Single Seat campaign to end MEPs’ monthly trek from their base in Brussels to their official ‘seat’ in Strasbourg.

McMillan-Scott was leader of the Conservative MEPs 1997 – 2001. He was re-elected top of the Yorkshire & Humber regional list in the 2009 election. McMillan-Scott is a life-long pro-European. Following the withdrawal of the Conservative Party from the centrist European People's Party in order to form the European Conservative and Reformist's Group, described by Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg as “a bunch of nutters, homophobes, anti-Semites and climate-change deniers’, McMillan-Scott protested. He successfully stood as an independent Vice-President against the nominee of the ECR Group, Polish MEP Michal Kaminski, criticising Kaminski's alleged past links to extremism, confirmed inter alia by the Daily Telegraph. He is the only Vice-President to have been elected without an official party candidature. As a result of this protest, he had the whip withdrawn and was subsequently expelled from the Conservative Party without notice or reason.

In March 2010, he joined the Liberal Democrats with whom he had usually worked closely on democracy and human rights issues. In May 2010 he became a member of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the European Parliament. On 17 May he joined the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group in the European Parliament. He sits as ALDE Vice-President of the European Parliament. In January 2012, he was re-elected as Vice-President for the fourth time. He once again received the portfolio for Democracy and Human Rights as well as additionally gaining the Sakharov Prize Network, which underpins the parliament's annual prize for freedom of expression and responsibility for transatlantic relations.