Edward McMillan-Scott

Edward McMillan-Scott (born 15 August 1949) is a British politician. He was a pro-EU Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Yorkshire and the Humber constituency from 1984 until 2014. He was the last and one of the longest-serving UK Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament 2004–2014. He held its Human Rights and Democracy portfolio. In 1992 he founded the EU's Instrument for Human Rights and Democracy (EIDHR) - now the EU's Global Europe Human Rights & Democracy Programme, which remain's the world's largest dedicated programme.

McMillan-Scott was leader of then 36 Conservative MEPs 1997–2001, one of the largest-ever UK delegations. He renegotiated the terms of their membership of the majority centrist European People's Party (EPP) group in 1999. David Cameron, the UK premier, launched the Conservative-led nationalist successor, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group after the European election that year. However, McMillan-Scott refused to join the ECR and sat as an Independent and Liberal Democrat until 2014. In the 2014 election he lost his seat as an MEP.

McMillan-Scott was elected Patron of the non-party European Movement UK, a pro-EU membership organisation founded by Winston Churchill, at its London AGM in 2014. Since 2017 he has coordinated a forum of operational pro-European organisations known as Where Next for Brexit? now renamed Pro EU Forum UK. This was the stakeholder forum for the Grassroots Coordinating Group set up by former MPs Chuka Umunna and Anna Soubry to argue for a second referendum on Brexit and is now closely linked to the European Movement. McMillan-Scott and colleagues raised over £2 million for the People's Vote campaign, launched in April 2018 to campaign publicly for a second referendum.

McMillan-Scott is a lifelong pro-European. Following David Cameron's decision to withdraw the Conservative MEPs from the centrist European People's Party in order to form the European Conservative and Reformist's Group, McMillan-Scott objected. When the composition of Cameron's new ECR group was announced after the European elections of 2009, McMillan-Scott protested and left. The new group was described by Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg as "a bunch of nutters, homophobes, anti-Semites and climate change deniers". In July 2009 McMillan-Scott successfully stood as the first-ever independent vice-president, against the nominee of the ECR Group, Polish MEP Michał Kamiński, criticising Kamiński'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.

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 (ALDE) in the European Parliament. He then sat 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.