Robert Rowland

Robert Andrew Rowland is a British politician who has served as a Brexit Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 2019 until the United Kingdom's exit from the EU in 2020.[4] He was a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and is a substitute on the Committee for Industry, Research and Energy.[5]

Robert Rowland
Member of the European Parliament
for South East England
In office
2 July 2019[1][2] – 31 January 2020
Preceded byRay Finch
Succeeded byConstituency abolished
Personal details
Born (1966-02-28) 28 February 1966[3]
Bowdon, Greater Manchester, England
NationalityBritish
Political partyBrexit
Spouse(s)Lisa Marie
Children4
Alma materNewcastle University

Early career

Rowland graduated from the University of Newcastle in 1988 with a BA (Hons)[6] and began his career in the investment industry. He started at Lazard Asset Management, and then became a fund manager with Odey Asset Management before becoming a director at Soros Fund Management [7] He then moved back to Lazard Asset Management in New York, after which he became a partner at Cheyne Capital Management (UK). Rowland is a director of the charity 'Tickets for Troops'. The charity distributes free tickets to members of the armed forces for a variety of sporting, musical and cultural events.[8]

Political career

Rowland's first introduction to politics was while he was studying at the University of Newcastle. He stood for Deputy President of the Students' Union in 1987,[9] and on failing to win that position, the 5 March 1987 issue of the student newspaper, the Courier, reports that he stood unopposed for election for the Convener of the Disciplinary Committee, but lost by 335 votes to 395 against "Re-open Nominations (R.O.N)."[10]

In the 10 March 1988 edition of the Courier, he wrote a letter directed at what he dubbed "the fascist left," and defending freedom of speech, and opposing the practice of providing "no platform" to speakers whose views were considered objectionable by some.[11]

In 2019, Rowland chose to return to politics, and at a European level, by standing as a candidate for the Brexit Party. Rowland gave his first major speech as a candidate at the Lakeside Hotel in Frimley, Surrey in May of that year, where he described opposition to Brexit as a potential "coup against democracy".[12]

Rowland was elected third on the Brexit Party list for the South East of England in the European Parliament elections in May 2019. He sat on the ECON (Economic and Monetary Affairs) committee in the European Parliament.[13]

Rowland is a climate change sceptic.[14] In a speech on 23 October 2019 he said "decarbonisation is deindustrialisation. It amounts to unilateral disarmament."[14] He argued that decarbonisation policies replace tax revenues generated from fossil fuels with subsidies to the detriment of the funding public services.

Writing for the Daily Telegraph in September 2019, Rowland warned that the UK was giving up a claim to accumulated profits from the European Investment Bank in the proposed European Union withdrawal agreement. In the same article he also argued that large eurozone liabilities and the highly leveraged way that the Bank lends puts it at risk of a banking crisis.[15]

On 9 July 2019, Rowland's Twitter activities received national attention when he tweeted at David Lammy, MP: "Lammy, you’re first port of call should be the Chicago School of Economics. Complete 3 years and then you might understand 10% of what we all understand. Ignorance and race baiting is your signature tune." Twitter users said that the Chicago School of Economics is not an actual university, but a school of thought; and that American degrees would in any case require 4 years, not 3. David Lammy also said that he had, in fact, attended Harvard University.[16]

The following day, on 10 July 2019, Rowland tweeted: "We are behind all our fisherman and the restoration of sovereignty over our waters. 200 miles of exclusion zone with any foreign fishing vessel given the same treatment as the Belgrano! Well done June. We are 110% behind you and will ensure you give ‘em hell on committee."[17] His threat to sink foreign civilian fishing vessels was widely shared and criticised on social media.[18]

Personal life

Rowland is married with three sons and one daughter.[8]

gollark: Well, the obvious* solution to program counter counterness is to just add more program counters, by which I mean hardware-accelerated greenerer threads with no context-switching overhead for more effectively utilizing execution units.
gollark: Advantages of expanding out powers:- leaves less RAM unused. Unused RAM is wasted RAM!- differentiation can be defined more lazily- palaiologos suffers- fewer rulesDisadvantages:- none
gollark: Of course. I was just being very lazy.
gollark: ++remind 3h deploy osmarkscalculator™ prototype or something
gollark: So something can be x^2 and* x*x.

References
  1. "Key dates ahead". European Parliament. 20 May 2017. Retrieved 28 May 2019.
  2. "Key dates ahead". BBC News. 22 May 2017. Retrieved 28 May 2019.
  3. "Robert ROWLAND". European Parliament. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  4. "The UK's European elections 2019". BBC News. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
  5. "9th parliamentary term | Robert ROWLAND | MEPs | European Parliament". www.europarl.europa.eu. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  6. "Pacific Funds Series Trust - 485Apos - 20060206 - Name_And_Title". Edgar Online. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  7. "Mr Robert Andrew Rowland". Financial Conduct Authority. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  8. "The Directors". Tickets for Troops. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  9. "Newcastle University Courier" (PDF). Newcastle University Library Courier Archive. 29 January 1987. p. 3. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  10. "Newcastle University Courier" (PDF). Newcastle University Library Courier Archive. 5 March 1987. p. 2. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  11. "Newcastle University Courier" (PDF). Newcastle University Library Courier Archive. 10 March 1988. p. 4. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  12. Harris, John (25 May 2019). "The energy behind Farage and his Brexit party leaves his rivals in the shadows" – via www.theguardian.com.
  13. "South East Region - 10 MEPs". www.europarl.europa.eu.
  14. "Debates: Wednesday, 23 October 2019 - Strasbourg". European Parliament. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  15. Rowland, Robert (30 September 2019). "Bunging the EU billions of pounds for free shows the toxic ineptitude at the heart of May's Brexit deal". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 20 December 2019.
  16. "Brexit Party MEP tried to come for David Lammy's education and he was the one who got schooled". The Independent. 10 July 2019. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
  17. "Robert Rowland Brexit SE Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  18. Rankin, Jennifer (12 July 2019). "Brexit party MEP called for EU fishing vessels to be 'sunk like Belgrano'". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
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