Who’s Andrew Bridgen? Tory MP faces suspension for breaking lobbying guidelines

He was discovered to have dedicated three breaches of the MPs’ code of conduct in his lobbying work for an organization known as Mere Plantations.

Mr Bridgen stated: “While I’m extraordinarily disillusioned with the suggestions of the committee, I settle for them and can adjust to them as required to take action.”

However this isn’t the primary time the MP has made the information. So who’s Andrew Bridgen?

Who’s Andrew Bridgen?

Andrew Bridgen has been the Tory MP for North-West Leicestershire since 2010.

He beforehand ran a household enterprise, AB Produce, a vegetable-production firm.

In September, the Occasions reported that Bridgen had been ordered to depart his dwelling and pay £800,000 in a dispute along with his former enterprise. The corporate sued him for allegedly failing to pay hire on a property owned by the agency.

In March, a Excessive Court docket decide dominated that he “lied” below oath, and had behaved aggressively.

In response to the findings earlier in 2022, the Occasions reported that Bridgen declared that “we dwell in an imperfect world” and stated his authorized group was “exploring all avenues with regard to authorized choices to acquire a simply consequence”.

He added: “If courts all the time obtained every part right the primary time there could be no want for attraction mechanisms.”

In 2013, Bridgen stated that MPs needs to be paid greater than their wage of £65,73. On the time, he additionally obtained greater than £7,000 a month from his firm, AB Produce.

Throughout a radio interview, he stated: “I do know MPs who will say in non-public they’re getting poorer.

“Most of my colleagues on the Authorities benches took a pay minimize to be an MP.”

In 2017, the MP needed to apologise for not declaring his monetary curiosity in HS2, as his dwelling was being purchased by the rail hyperlink.

He admitted failing to reveal the monetary curiosity in a debate, however confused that he had disclosed it in earlier debates.

He married his first spouse, Jacqueline, in 2000 and so they have two sons. He’s now married to his second spouse, Nevena, a Serbian former opera singer.

Political opinions and background

Bridgen has repeatedly known as for Tory prime ministers to stop.

In 2013, Bridgen was summoned by the Tory whips for calling for a vote of no-confidence in then-prime minister David Cameron.

Writing within the Mail on Sunday, Bridgen stated: “The pilot doesn’t know how one can land it. We are able to both do one thing about it earlier than the crash, or sit again, watch the in-flight motion pictures, and look ahead to the inevitable.”

In 2018, he known as for a vote of no confidence in then-Prime Minister Theresa Could over her Brexit plan.

In a letter that was leaked to the media, he stated: “The negotiations with the European Union seem to have deteriorated right into a state of full capitulation.

“We have now to ship Brexit or we shall be punished on the polls on the subsequent normal election.

“All we have now requested from the prime minister is that she sticks to what she has promised on repeated events when she declared that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ and pledged to take again management of our cash, borders and legal guidelines.”

In January 2022, Bridgen known as for then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson to stop over the Partygate scandal.

Regardless of backing Johnson in 2019, he publicly known as for him to depart within the wake of Partygate, saying: “Sadly, the prime minister’s place has turn into untenable.

“Management is not only in regards to the job title, and even making huge choices – it’s equally about having an ethical compass, of understanding not good from left however proper from improper.”

He backed a transfer to decriminalise TV licence payment non-payment in 2014, arguing that individuals had been being criminalised for “being poor”.

Bridgen pushed for a Leicester railway line to be restored in 2017 and known as for the Authorities to fund it.

He stated: “It could be an extremely well-liked transfer and a really helpful one for folks from my constituency eager to get south through Leicester to London or north through Burton.

“We additionally must get folks into north-west Leicestershire, which is an space of big financial development however very low unemployment.

“One other 10,000 jobs shall be created right here within the coming years and we have to get folks from south Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire in to do them. To do this, we’d like correct public transport.

“You could possibly truly run a lightweight railway service. However we have to see the Authorities’s cash.”

Controversial feedback

Bridgen was criticised in 2014 for his feedback about “the ability of the Jewish foyer in America”, however insisted he was “actually not anti-Semitic”.

Jewish Information reported that, in response to the  backlash, Bridgen stated: “It was alleged to me that no American politician could be remotely crucial publicly of something Israel does as a result of, as they put it, in the event that they do, their opponents within the elections or within the primaries would have tens of millions of {dollars} dropped into their marketing campaign fund, with out even asking, to do away with them.”

He added: “To have a state of affairs the place America’s political figures can’t make any remark remotely crucial of Israel is for my part unhealthy. I do really feel that it falls to Britain to be, when essential, a crucial good friend of Israel. I can solely regard the phrases and phrases that had been utilized in Washington as the reality as these politicians noticed it. I used the language that I recall was used to me.”

In 2017, Bridgen lashed out at an exhibition that paid tribute to homosexual males who had been hanged below legal guidelines that criminalised same-sex acts. He known as the exhibition “completely inappropriate”.

Based on Pink Information, the MP stated: He stated: “That is completely inappropriate. It’s not what folks go to the Nationwide Belief for. If I would like ethical steerage I am going to church – not the Nationwide Belief.”

The MP prompted additional controversy in 2018 when he stated there have been no tough sleepers in his North-West Leicestershire constituency.

Whereas the official figures mirrored what Bridgen stated, Mark Grant, the boss of Leicester-based charity Motion Homeless, stated they didn’t replicate the fact.

The Leicestershire MP additionally prompted a backlash in 2018 for saying he feels “uncomfortable” chatting with a lady in a burka. He stated: “They don’t get that behavioural suggestions and it makes me uncomfortable.”

He appeared on Sky Information within the aftermath of Boris Johnson’s feedback about Muslim girls. The MP requested Kay Burley if she would “interview me now if I used to be carrying a crash helmet with the visor down”.

In 2019, he apologised following a backlash to his defence of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s controversial feedback on Grenfell.

Mr Bridgen defended his Tory colleague for his “uncharacteristically clumsy” feedback suggesting the victims ought to have used “widespread sense”.