Roger Helmer

Roger Helmer (born 25 January 1944 in London) is a British business executive and politician and a United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands region. He was elected to the European Parliament in 1999 as a Conservative Party MEP, and re-elected in 2004 and 2009. In March 2012 he defected from the Conservatives to UKIP.

On 12 October 2011 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 admitting that his "twelve-and-a-half years banging my head against the same brick wall in Brussels is perhaps long enough". Helmer expected to be replaced by Rupert Matthews who was next on the Conservative party list in the European Parliament election, 2009. However the Tory party was reported to be looking into golliwog dolls featuring on the front cover of a book published by a company of which Matthews is director and shareholder and would not confirm that Matthews would succeed him. Helmer delayed standing down before deciding to defect to UKIP with the intention to fulfil his term until 2014.

He has described himself as a eurosceptic and is a supporter of the Better Off Out campaign. He has publicly expressed his opposition to a variety of LGBT rights issues and is a climate change sceptic.