Amjad Bashir

Bashir was born in Pakistan, and moved to Yorkshire aged eight to live with his father who was a mill worker in Bradford. He is a member of the British Ahmedi Pakistani community. Bashir attended Thornton Grammar School before attending the University of Bradford to study chemical engineering.[3]

Bashir is a restaurateur who, prior to becoming politically active, ran two establishments in Bradford and Manchester.[3]

After fifteen years as a member of the Conservative Party, Bashir joined UKIP in 2012[4][5] and was placed second on the party's list of candidates for the Yorkshire and the Humber region at the 2014 European Parliament election. UKIP topped the regional poll with 31% of the vote, winning three seats, and Bashir was thus elected as one of six MEPs for the region.[6] He was the party's spokesman on communities and on small and medium-sized businesses until his defection to the Conservatives in January 2015.

Bashir is a member of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs, Employment and Industry committees. He is also a member of the inter-parliamentary delegations for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Afghanistan.[7]

Bashir is the chairman of the ECR Group's working group on SMEs and also Conservative parliamentary delegation spokesman on SMEs.[8]

On 20 February 2016, Bashir announced that he would be supporting the campaign to leave the European Union in the forthcoming EU membership referendum.[9]

As of May 2017, Bashir ranked 720 out of 751 MEPs for his participation in roll call votes in the European Parliament.[10]

Bashir met with Conservative leader and Prime Minister David Cameron on 23 January 2015 to discuss moving back to the party, and made the move official the following day.[11] Cameron stated that he was "absolutely delighted that Bashir had decided to leave Ukip and join the Conservative Party". He also stated that Bashir had an "inspiring story", and that "it's another sign that in this great country of ours you can come to Britain without very much and you can be a member of the European parliament, an MP, sit in the cabinet".[12]

Following his defection to the Conservatives, UKIP alleged that Bashir had failed to attend a meeting on 20 January 2015, three days prior to his defection, to discuss their concerns, pending an investigation, into what they described as "a number of extremely serious issues … which include unanswered financial and employment questions" and that "UKIP MEP Mike Hookem had passed on evidence of Mr Bashir's alleged wrongdoing to West Yorkshire police."[13][14] More specifically, they alleged interference in a UKIP Keighley candidate selection, immigration offences in his restaurants and financial irregularities with regard to expenses incurred by his European parliamentary political group at the time, the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy.[15] Bashir described the allegations as "absurd and made-up".[12]

Bashir was defended by Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan and by then-Conservative Party Chairman Grant Shapps, both of whom criticised the allegations by UKIP.[16][17]

Bashir's lawyers wrote to Nigel Farage in April 2015, inviting him to withdraw the claims made about Bashir or face a libel action.[18] As of April 2016, neither such withdrawal nor any libel action had taken place.

In January 2015, Bashir was nominated for the Politician of the Year award at the British Muslim Awards.[26]