Richard A. E. North

Richard Anthony Edward North^[1] is a British blogger and author. He has published books on defence and agriculture.^[2] In 2006 his blog EUReferendum was rated by the Financial Times as the UK's most influential political blog.^[3] North was previously research director in the European Parliament for the now-defunct political grouping Europe of Democracies and Diversities, which included the UK Independence Party (UKIP).

North has collaborated with journalist Christopher Booker on climate change, public health and other issues.^[4] North has co-authored a number of books with Booker, as well as collaborating on Booker's journalism.

Background

North had "a brief career in the Royal Air Force"^[5] before becoming a local government officer, and then for two decades ran his own consultancy business.^[5] A 1994 contribution to the Institute of Economic Affairs's journal Economic Affairs described him as "an independent food safety adviser".^[6] "He then moved into trade politics and thence to the European Parliament as research director for the group of European Democracies and Diversities,"^[5] a grouping of eurosceptic political groupings which existed from 1999 to 2004, in which the UK Independence Party (UKIP) participated. At the European Parliament in Strasbourg he shared an office with UKIP's leader Nigel Farage.^[7]

In the 1990s North completed a PhD^[5] on public sector food-poisoning surveillance at Leeds Metropolitan University.^[1]

North stood for the Referendum Party in the 1997 election, in South Derbyshire, having joined the party in 1996.^[8] In the 2004 European elections North was UKIP's number one candidate on the party list for the Yorkshire region, until he was supplanted by Godfrey Bloom,^[9] who won a seat. North later resigned from UKIP, describing his service for the party as "optimism, descending into frustration, to disillusionment and to betrayal".^[10][11]

European Union

In the early 1990s North began collaborating with journalist Christopher Booker, co-publishing on a range of issues, including the European Union. Their first book, The Mad Officials: How The Bureaucrats Are Strangling Britain (1994) focused on EU regulation in the UK, and was followed by The Castle of Lies: Why Britain Must get Out of Europe (1996) and The Great Deception: Can the European Union Survive? (2005). In 2004 he published a Bruges Group paper on the European Union's Galileo satellite navigation system.^[12]

North was one of seventeen shortlisted entrants invited to submit a full submission to the Institute of Economic Affairs's 2013 Brexit Prize competition. Entrants were asked to imagine an 'out' vote in a proposed referendum on United Kingdom membership of the European Union and asked to compose a blueprint for the process of withdrawal, taking account of Britain's relationship to global governance and trade systems.^[13] His submission, 'FLexCit', proposed that Britain should rejoin the European Free Trade Association via membership of the European Economic Area. Under the proposal, Britain would initially adopt the community acquis of the European Union, the accumulated legislation, legal acts, and court decisions which constitute the body of European Union law. North argues that under this approach to EU exit there would be very little visible consequence of Britain's change in status, either for the better or the worse. Further renegotiation of trade and governance would become a longer term option.^[14] Though not a finalist in the contest, North continues to develop the Flexcit plan in cooperation with readers of the EUReferendum blog, and others.

Health

North and Booker wrote a special edition for Private Eye on the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak, describing the subsequent merger of the Agriculture (MAFF) and Environment ministries to form the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) as the "most cynical makeover since Windscale changed its name to Sellafield".^[15] North's 2001 book The death of British agriculture: the wanton destruction of a key industry included some of the same health issues in terms of their negative effect on British agriculture: "Struggling under the onslaught of successive crises – the effects of the Common Agricultural Policy and the bureaucratic demands of the EU; food scares from salmonella to BSE; the spread of intensive farming and the concentration of buying power in the hands of the retail giants – British farming has been brought to its knees."^[16]

More recently North collaborated with Booker on Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth (2007), a study of the part played in Western society in recent decades by the 'scare phenomenon'.

Defence

North's 2009 sole-author book, Ministry of Defeat 2003–2009: The British in Iraq, was reviewed in the Daily Telegraph.^[17] North also blogs on defence matters, and is credited by Booker with early contributions to the criticism of the Ministry of Defence's use of under-protected Land Rovers in Afghanistan.^[18][19] In 2003 he published a Centre for Policy Studies paper on UK defence policy.^[20]

Climate change

North has written about and commented on climate change from a sceptical position, including co-authoring (with Christopher Booker) Climategate to Cancun: The Real Global Warming Disaster Continues..., the followup to Booker's The Real Global Warming Disaster. North also collaborated with Booker in January 2010 on what Booker dubbed "Amazongate",^{[21] [22]} when North showed that an IPCC claim that 40 percent of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to "even a slight reduction in precipitation" was sourced to a World Wildlife Fund report. While North was correct to point out that the report was not peer-reviewed scientific literature,^[21] it later became clear that there was evidence supporting the report's claim, based on research by "the respected Amazon Environmental Research Institute(IPAM)".^[23] The Sunday Times printed an apology and retraction for an article based on material from North.^[23]

In December 2009, Christopher Booker and Richard North published an article in The Sunday Telegraph in which they accused Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), of using his position for personal gain,^{[24][25][26][27]} with a follow-up Telegraph article in January 2010.^[28]According to George Monbiot, "The allegations ... were widely aired in the media and generally believed."^[26] On 21 August 2010, The Daily Telegraph issued an apology,^[25] and withdrew the December article from their website,^[26] having reportedly paid legal fees running into six figures. Pachauri described the original allegations as "another attempt by the climate sceptics to discredit the IPCC."^[29]

Other

In 2006 North's allegations that Hezbollah had staged some of the aftermath of the Qana airstrike were widely aired in international media.^[30]

In 2006 North wrote on his blog, "if being wrong gets one closer to the truth – as it does – then it is worth putting up half-formed speculation and letting the debate rage."^[31]

Books

• (with Christopher Booker), The Mad Officials: How The Bureaucrats Are Strangling Britain (1994)
• (with Christopher Booker), The Castle of Lies: Why Britain Must get Out of Europe (1996)
• The death of British agriculture: the wanton destruction of a key industry, Gerald Duckworth and Company, 2001
• (with Christopher Booker), The Great Deception: Can the European Union Survive?, Continuum Publishing, 2005
• (with Christopher Booker), Scared to Death: From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth, Continuum Publishing, 2007
• Ministry of Defeat 2003–2009: The British in Iraq 2003–2009, Continuum Publishing, 2009
• The Many Not the Few: The Stolen History of the Battle of Britain, Continuum Publishing, 2012

References

External links

• Eureferendum.com
• Defenceoftherealm.blogspot.com
• North's columns for the Bruges Group
• A natural disaster ... but a man-made catastrophe, Daily Mail, 25 April 2010