| Mike Nattrass MEP | |
|---|---|
| Member of the European Parliament for the West Midlands |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office June 2004 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | 14 December 1945 Leeds, Yorkshire |
| Nationality | English |
| Political party | UKIP |
Mike Nattrass is an English politician and Member of the European Parliament, representing the West Midlands constituency for the UK Independence Party (UKIP), elected for the first time in June 2004 and re-elected in June 2009.
Born on 14 December 1945 in Leeds, Yorkshire, with Black Country links on his mother’s side, he is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS) and co-founder, in the 1980s, of Nattrass Giles, a commercial property business.
Nattrass joined the New Britain Party in 1994 whose candidates were absorbed into the Referendum Party in 1997. He gained the highest vote in the West Midlands for the Referendum Party at the 1997 general election. In 1998, he accepted an invitation to join UKIP from its leader Michael Holmes and sat on the UKIP National Executive Committee. In 2000 he became Party Chairman under Leader Jeffrey Titford and from 2002 to 2006 he was Deputy Leader under Roger Knapman.
Nattrass stood in many by elections and general elections representing UKIP, including the May 2008 Crewe and Nantwich by-election and in South Staffordshire at the general election in 2010.
He was elected to the European Parliament in 2004, one of 12 seats won by UKIP, with a 9.2% swing and 16.1% of the vote. Nattrass was re-elected in West Midlands June 2009, when UKIP polled 16.5% nationally, pushing Labour into third place and electing 13 MEPs. His regional vote increased to 21%, sending two UKIP West Midlands MEPs to the European Parliament.
He has been a member of the Parliament’s Transport and Tourism Committee since 2004 and speaks regularly in the Parliament on a wide range of issues. He believes that UK legislation should be made in the UK, not by the EU and is committed to supporting withdrawal from the European Union. He supports West Midlands business in a period of economic difficulty and is viewed by his constituents as an effective champion of local and national issues both in parliament and through regular appearances on local and national TV and radio.
Nattrass has announced that he plans to step down by the time of the next European elections in 2014.[1]
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Nigel Farage |
Chairman of the UK Independence Party 2000–2002 |
Succeeded by David Lott |
| Preceded by Graham Booth |
Deputy Leader of the UK Independence Party 2002–2006 |
Succeeded by David Campbell-Bannerman |
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