Bruges Group Blog

John Hoerner began his retailing career part-time at Hovland-Swanson specialty store in December 1959 where he subsequently held positions in selling, sales supervision, buying and merchandising.  John has a keen interest in politics and in 1966 helped manage a successful congressional campaign.

In September 1968, he was named General Merchandise Manager of the ladies’ divisions at Woolf Brothers ladies and men’s speciality store in Kansas City, Missouri.  Woolf Brothers operated stores in Kansas City, Tulsa, Wichita, Memphis and Dallas.

In January 1972, he joined Associated Dry Goods Corporation at the Hahne & Company division in New Jersey as Womenswear Merchandise Manager.  He left Hahne’s in August 1973 to join a partnership in real estate development and venture capital based in McLean, Virginia.

He re-joined ADG in November 1974 as General Merchandise Manager of all apparel, accessories and shoes.  In 1976, he was named Senior Vice President and Director of Stores and in 1979, he became Senior Vice President and General Merchandise Manager.

In May 1981, Associated Dry Goods Corporation (ADG) named Hoerner President and Chief Executive Officer of their H & S Pogues department store division, headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In June 1982, Hoerner was named President and CEO of ADG’s L.S. Ayres and Company division headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana.  In November 1983, under John’s leadership, ADG merged Pogues with Ayres, making an 18-store chain of department stores, which ranked in the top 30 in volume in the United States.

In August 1985, Hoerner was named Chairman and CEO of Ayres and in November 1985, ADG merged Ayres with Stewart Dry Goods Company, ADG division based in Louisville, Kentucky, making Ayres into a 25-store chain with annual turnover of US$450,000,000.  ADG featured the L S Ayres division in their 1985 Annual Report published in April 1986.

In October of 1986, the May Department Stores Company acquired ADG, and L. S. Ayres then became part of the world’s largest department store retailer.

In April 1987, Hoerner was appointed Chairman of Debenhams, a then 67-store chain of department stores based in London.  In February 1988, he added the Chairmanship of Harvey Nichols to his responsibility.  Debenhams grew to over 100 stores and was a top-performing division of The Burton Group.

In November 1989, John became a member of the Executive Management Board of the Burton Group and Chief Executive, Stores, and in June 1991, he was appointed to the Board of the Burton Group.

In February 1992, Hoerner was named Chief Executive of The Burton Group Plc, one of the UK’s leading retail companies including Debenhams and such well-known businesses as TopShop, Top Man, Dorothy Perkins, Principles, Burton Menswear, and Evans.

In January 1998, John organised the de-merger of Debenhams from the Burton Group into a separate company, creating substantial value for shareholders.   The Burton Group was at that time renamed Arcadia Group Plc, which by then included Burton Menswear, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, TopShop and Top Man, Principles, Hawkshead and Racing Green.  John Hoerner continued as Chief Executive of the newly named Arcadia Group and Arcadia subsequently acquired the Sears Brands Wallis, Warehouse, Miss Selfridge, and Outfit.  John retired as Chief Executive of Arcadia Group PLC in November 2000.

In February 2001 John started a consulting project for Tesco Stores PLC clothing and in July 2001, John joined Tesco as Chief Executive of UK Clothing.  In January of 2004, he added Tesco International Sourcing to his responsibilities.  In September 2005, John handed the UK Clothing Operation over to Terry Green and he then became Chief Executive of the Tesco Central European Clothing operation where he led development of a centralised clothing operation for Tesco in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary until April 2008.  He then consulted part-time for Tesco in the UK and in their international divisions in China, Thailand, South Korea, India, Turkey, and Malaysia until September 2016 when he retired from Tesco.  John will now be available to consult for the Change Management Group where he is a shareholder and board member.

John’s Book “Recipes for Retailers” in which he outlines recipes for retail success which he has learned over the years was published in China in both English and Chinese in July 2015 as a two-volume set.  The same book under the title “How to Sell – Recipes for Retail” was published in the UK in November 2015.

Information and commentary on the book is available at www.howtosell.expert .

Other information:

In Indianapolis, John was a member of the Board of Directors of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Board of Directors of the Indianapolis Symphony.  He was also a director of the Merchants National Corporation and Merchants National Bank (Now PNC Bank).

In the UK, Hoerner was a Trustee of the Crimestopper’s Trust and a Trustee of Industry in Education and a director of Business for Sterling.  He served as Chairman of the British Fashion Council from July 1997 until July 2000.

In January 1998, he joined the board of BAA Plc, operator of major UK airports including Heathrow and Gatwick as Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the remuneration committee.  He retired from the BAA board in January of 2004. John was a member of “Business for Sterling” which was influential in keeping the UK out of the EURO. John was a member of the board of “Business for Britain” – an organisation of businesspeople who support the prime minister in his promise to change and improve the relationship of the UK with the European Community. This group became the basis for the successful Vote Leave campaign.

Hoerner has been a member of the Committee at the Dogs’ Home Battersea since 1991 and in June of 1995 was elected Vice-Chairman and in June 2002 was elected as Chairman of the Trustees of The Battersea Dogs Home; he retired from the Battersea Dogs & Cats home in July of 2006.

He was a member of Groucho Club, The Traveller’s Club, and other London Clubs.

In 2008 John received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Nebraska only one such award is given each year.

John is married to the former Anna Lea Thomas of Kansas City.  They live on a farm in Gloucestershire with three horses and five rescue dogs from Battersea Dogs Home.  He has a son, Scott in Las Vegas who is retired from the US Marine Corps and now a firearms safety instructor.  His daughter, Joanne a personal counsellor specialising in children and families lives in Chicago.  She has two children.  Her husband is a former market trader, now a venture capitalist.

In addition to his interest in dogs and horses, Hoerner was a keen pilot having owned several aeroplanes.  He is a member of the UK Air Squadron.

After leaving school Niall was commissioned into The Royal Green Jackets serving 10 years with postings to Germany BAOR, two tours in Northern Ireland, UN in Cyprus, and Canada. On leaving the Army he worked for 18 years in pub management with Bass plc during which time Niall served for 14 years with the Territorial Army finishing as a Major with the Territiorial Decoration. In retirement he helped set up The Harrogate Agenda, to reform our system of governance based on a sovereign people rather than parliament, which Niall still promote to this day. The petition he started on 27^th October, on the government’s policy of Net Zero, is under THA's banner as there is no democratic mandate for this government to spend £3 trillion of our money on their climate alarmist agenda which should be put to a referendum.

Niall@warry.go-plus.net

JEREMY NIEBOER was educated at Harrow School and Oriel College Oxford. After a period practising as a member of the Bar in Kings Bench Walk he was later admitted as a solicitor becoming a partner in two City law firms. He specialised in corporate work, including mergers andacquisitions, capital market public offerings, private equity transactions and commercial law. Hestill acts for a few long-standing clients. His first encounter with any challenge to the accepted doctrine of ‘global warming’ came through his contact with Christopher Booker, whom Jeremy first met when acting as lead solicitor on the application by Lord Rees-Mogg to restrain ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. Christopher himself published his essential work The Real Global Warming Disaster in 2009. Just at the time of its publication, there was a public meeting in Church House addressed by Professor Plimer in which he succinctly set out the fundamental scientific flaws of alleged CO₂ driven global warming. It was this that set Jeremy on a path of enquiry and research. Jeremy has since spoken at numerous meetings as to the want of any tenable scientific basis forthe vast proposed expenditure on the folly of de-carbonisation. He published his first booklet on climate alarmism with the Bruges Group in 2010, A Lesson in Democracy, and has been a leadspeaker at public meetings and debates on the subject.

Jack Brookes has a BSc 2.1 from Queen's University Belfast in Economics with Finance (graduated July 2020). He briefly attended the University of Birmingham to study for a Masters in a law related degree. He is a conservative-libertarian and an advocate of the Austrian School of Economics. Jack was a member of the Conservative Party for five years before becoming a member of Reform and standing for Reform in the Erdington Parliamentary By Election in March 2022 - he will be standing again in 2024. He has had various jobs including being a part of a company that carries industrial cleaning for the national grid. Jack played a key role in securing a contract with a potential worth of above £1 million. He has previously worked in Financial Crime (FinCrime) at PwC.

Dinah became active in the Conservative Party as a London student running her own FCS branch. She then became the youngest Association Chairman at the time in Ealing North and was Secretary to Greater London YCs. Having moved to the East End she became Chairman of Bethnal Green and Bow and then Chairman of London East. She drastically increased the campaign mutual aid in the Area. Dinah having been the Vote Leave Co-ordinator for Tower Hamlets despairing at Theresa May’s negotiations led the campaign to persuade Mrs May to deliver a clean Brexit. Mrs May eventually resigned defeated.

Bob Lyddon is an experienced management consultant both privately and with PwC. His speciality isBob Lyddon is an experienced management consultant both privately and with PwC. His speciality iscash and liquidity management in which he recently structured online tuition for a major Asian bankand designed a series of online courses for the accountancy profession.Bob has had three previous papers published by The Bruges Group and these have proven influentialin the Brexit debate:• “The UK’s risks and exposure to the European Investment Bank and other European financialmechanisms: amounts, safeguards and breaches in the dyke” in 2012• “The UK’s liabilities to the financial mechanisms of the European Union” in 2016• “The Euro’s Battle for Survival – Entering the Red Zone” in 2018These papers brought the well-concealed issue of the UK’s dealings with the European InvestmentBank to the fore, and ensured that that UK’s residual liabilities under the Brexit Withdrawal Agreementdid not remain buried in the fine print.Bob co-authored “Managing Euro Risk” with Barnabas Reynolds and Professor David Blake, whichwas published in February 2020 by Politeia.Bob authored the Brexit Papers between 2016 and 2017, issued through Global Britain and availableat http://brexitpapers.uk/. These include:• Our liabilities to the EU: the biggest risk of all - why leaving the Single Market is the only wayto avoid the huge risk from financial gambling by EU institutions• The Single Market’s Dutch auction: how the EU’s Single Market fosters corporate taxavoidance schemes that costs the UK billions• The UK’s lost GDP and tax revenues: how Single Market tax dodges cost the UK £10bn ayear and make us all the poorerRecent consulting engagements include running an international banking alliance, advising smallpayment providers how to access UK payment systems, and advising a major player in globalpayments as to the opportunities and threats arising from the establishment the UK’s PaymentSystems Regulator.With PwC Bob managed several Euro implementation programmes, including that of the EuropeanInvestment Bank. Prior to that, he had a diverse 17-year career in international banking,encompassing Transaction Banking, syndicated loans, export finance and derivatives.Bob holds a First Class Bachelors degree in Modern Languages from the University of Cambridge, isstudying for a Masters degree in Local History at the Open University, and is a Fellow of the Centre for Brexit Policy.

Rt Hon. Sir John Redwood MP was appointed to the Cabinet in May 1993 when he became Secretary of State for Wales. In 1995 he challenged John Major for the Conservative Party leadership. In opposition he has acted as Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1997-1999) Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1999-2000) and Shadow Secretary of State for Deregulation (2004-2005).

Sean is currently studying European Studies with German at King’s College, London. He was born in Bristol but has spent most of his life in Guildford, where he attended George Abbot School. He was an active member of the local Royal Marines Cadets, enjoys keeping fit and is a keen rugby follower, both as a player and a spectator. He has a deep interest in politics and current affairs, with a particular focus on European and international affairs.

Thomas Rands is a Nineteen year old Politics student at the University of East Anglia, having been interested in politics from an early age Thomas spent time in Parliament as part of his work experience along with the local council offices. Thomas has recently become involved with party politics, joining the Conservative party in 2018 and when at university becoming active in the Conservative group there.

Sir William Cash MP is the Chairman of the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee. Bill declined a government position in 1991, choosing instead to orchestrate opposition to the Maastricht Treaty. Bill Cash was also Chairman of the Parliamentary Friends of the Bruges Group . His publications include; Associated, Not Absorbed – The Associated European Area, Are we really Winning on Europe?, Against a Federal Europe: The Battle for Britain and British and German National Interests.

Karan will graduate from William and Mary, Virginia, USA in August 2020 with a major in Government. He graduated from The International School Bangalore, India with an International Baccalaureate diploma.

Karan’s chief passion has long been for American and global politics. He believes in a philosophy of limited government and individual liberty with his political idols ranging from Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher to Calvin Coolidge.

Karan was an e-intern at Air Combat Command, Virginia, from August 2019 to May 2020, at TRADOC (US Army Training and Doctrine Command), Virginia, in Spring 2019 and a summer intern at U.S. Department of State, Washington D.C. in 2019.

Karan is a history buff, enjoys traveling, reading, tennis and writing papers on political issues. He has travelled in the US, Canada, Asia, Africa and Europe. He is currently a member of College Republicans on campus and Alpha Lambda Delta & Phi Eta Sigma First-Year Student Honor Societies.

Dr David Blake is Professor of Pension Economics and Director of the Pensions Institute at Cass Business School, London; Chairman of Square Mile Consultants, a training and research consultancy; and Co-Founder with JPMorgan of the LifeMetrics Index. Consultant to many organisations, including JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Union Bank of Switzerland, Paribas Capital Markets, Prudential UK, AXA, Aegon, Friends Provident, McKinsey & Co., the Office for National Statistics, the Financial Services Authority, the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Treasury, the Bank of England, the Prime Minister’s Policy Directorate, the OECD, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

In June 1996, he established the Pensions Institute. The Pensions Institute undertakes high quality research on all pension-related issues and publishes details of its research activities on the internet (http://www.pensions-institute.org). His recent books include Pension Schemes and Pension Funds in the United Kingdom published by Oxford University Press in 2003, and Pension Economics and Pension Finance, both published by Wiley in 2006. David is also a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Behavioral Finance Forum founded by Professor Shlomo Benartzi of UCLA.

Ben Habib is a British politician and businessman. He was elected as a Brexit Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in the 2019 European parliamentary election. He remained in the role until the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU. Benyamin Naeem Habib is the chief executive of First Property Group plc, a commercial property investment and fund management company. Ben is a critic of the transitional arrangements, supporting divergence from the EU.

Dr Kevin Hickson is Senior Lecturer in British Politics at the University of Liverpool where he has taught for 17 years.  He has authored, co-authored and edited 16 books on contemporary British political history and political ideologies.  He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Historical Society.

M.L.R. Smith is Professor Strategic Theory at King’s College London. He is co-author of ‘The British Road to Dirty War’ (https://www.brugesgroup.com/blog/the-british-road-to-dirty-war-analysis-by-david-betz-mlr-smith-1) and ‘Carry On Democracy?’ (https://www.brugesgroup.com/blog/carry-on-democracy-analysis-by-david-betz-mlr-smith), and co-author of Sacred Violence: Political Religion in a Secular Age (London and New York: Palgrave/McMillan, 2014).

Stephen Meyer is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute, a public policy and scientific research organization in Seattle in the United States. There he directs the institute’s Center for Science and Culture and also contributes to its foreign policy programs, where he writes on missile defense and the importance of strengthening key U.S. alliances. Meyer earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 1991. In 1989 while finishing his Ph.D., he advocated a U.K-U.S. free trade agreement on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal as a way of relieving pressure on Britain to relinquish sovereignty to the EU. Since then he has written numerous articles urging U.S. policymakers to support British efforts to reclaim sovereignty from the EU and on the need to strengthen the crucially important Anglo-American defence, intelligence sharing and trading alliance. His articles on these topics have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Stream, The Federalist and National Review. He has published many other editorials in national newspapers such as USA Today, The National Post (of Canada), The Daily Telegraph and The Los Angeles Times. His 2009 book Signature in the Cell was selected as a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year.

Thomas Bevan is a sixth form student from the Midlands, studying politics, economics and history. With a passion for politics and in particular international relations, he is determined to have a career in journalism or politics. As a Conservative party member and fervent believer in Brexit, he recognises the greater struggle that Brexit represents and the opportunities it provides for Britain.

Charles is a proud northern, working-class conservative and is a final year student at King's College London. At King's, he studies European Politics and so has developed an in-depth understanding of the workings of the European Union. He is particularly interested in the EU's Enlargement Policy and the Common Defence and Security Policy. However, his study of the EU has also reaffirmed his decision to vote to leave the EU in 2016, and so he robustly makes the case for Brexit in all his seminars!

Outside of University, Charles has, in less than two years of residing in London, worked for two prominent Members of Parliament; Damian Collins MP, for nearly 18 months, and Daniel Kawczynski MP for a shorter period. Beyond this, he was also recently an active member of Esther McVey's leadership team for the 2019 Conservative Party leadership contest.

On a personal level Charles enjoys maintaining his physical fitness immensely, and so has a great interest in the gym and in general nutrition. 

David Kurten has been a London Assembly Member since May 2016, and was UKIP's Education Spokesman from November 2016 to December 2018. Before entering politics, he was a Chemistry teacher for over 15 years and taught in both state and private schools in Hampshire, Botswana, London, Hertfordshire, Bosnia-Herzegovina, New York and Bermuda.

Mike is ased in Billericay in Essex and is a long-time member of Conservative Party. He became active in all aspects of leaving the EU – and from 2016 is a member of Bruges Group. Like many, he finds politics fascinating but frustrating. Mike had a long career in the Toy and Watch industries developing, marketing and selling  licensed character products – e.g. Disney Marvel, Hello Kitty etc. He spent much time travelling to organise manufacturing in the Far East importing and selling in the UK and Europe.  After retirement he worked on two different TV sales channels as the so called “Watch expert”. Mike enjoys the social side of life and meeting interesting people.

David Betz is Professor of War in the Modern World and Deputy Head of the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He has written extensively on insurgency and counterinsurgency, irregular warfare, revolution, state and non-state propaganda, and information warfare. His most recent book Carnage and Connectivity: Landmarks in the Decline of Conventional Military Power analyses the wide impact of information technology on war and warfare.

Dr. Gerard Conway is a senior lecturer in law at Brunel University London, from where he obtained his PhD degree. He worked as legal trainee in the Legal Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs of Ireland (six months), as a judicial researcher in the Four Courts in Dublin (seven months), and as a legal researcher in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions of Ireland (for nearly three years). His research is in the areas of legal reasoning, international courts, constitutional law of the EU, comparative public law, and European and international criminal law.

John Poynton was educated at University of Edinburgh, where he studied physics and economics. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant and as a Management Consultant with Price Waterhouse in London before serving two medium-sized organisations as finance director.  

In 2014 he joined UKIP and stood as parliamentary candidate in Ealing Southall in 2015 and 2017. He campaigned independently during the referendum so as to promote his own literature, helping to achieve 40% for Leave across the London Borough of Ealing. 

John regards himself as a centre radical and opposes all forms of discrimination. His blog can be found at https://jepoynton.com

Will Podmore is the author of Brexit: the road to freedom, published by i2i Press, paperback, 317 pages, ISBN 978-1916427174
£9.95. Available from the author and from Amazon.

Will Podmore was the Chief Librarian at the University College of Osteopathy from 1986 to 2021.

He is married, with one daughter, three sons and six grandsons. He is the author of five other books:

Capability Britain – for a country that works, i2i Publishing, 2021

Britain, Italy, Germany and the Spanish Civil War;

Reg Birch: engineer, trade unionist, communist;

The European Union – bad for Britain – a trade union view;

British foreign policy since 1870; and The war against the working class.

TED ROOSEVELT MALLOCH was a Professor and Senior Fellow in Management Practice at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and at Henley Business School, in the UK. He previously served as Research Professor at Yale University. He is an international expert on governance, strategy and business.

His most recent books concern the nature of virtuous enterprise, the practices of practical wisdom, the pursuit of happiness, the virtues of generosity and thrift. His new book, co-authored with the retired Chairman and CEO of Cargill, is entitled: Common Sense Business. His memoir is entitled: DAVOS, ASPEN & YALE: My Life Behind the Elite Curtain as a Global Sherpa.

Dr. Malloch is also Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Roosevelt Global Governance Group, a leading strategic management and thought leadership company. He has served on the executive board of the World Economic Forum (DAVOS); has held an ambassadorial level position at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland; worked in senior policy positions at the US State Department and US Senate; did capital markets at Salomon Brothers on Wall Street. He has experience on a wide number of corporate, mutual fund, and not-for-profit boards, including universities, charitable trusts, and foundations. He has traveled to 147 countries and worked at the CEO and Head of State/Government level with a wide range of country and corporate clients.

Ted earned his PhD in international political economy from the University of Toronto and took his B.A. from Gordon College, and an M.Litt.

Peter Kirby was born in 1932 and educated at Bournemouth Grammar School 1943-1948.  He holds the Higher National Certificate in Business Studies (1969) and is a Graduate Member of the Institute of Purchasing and Supply (1972). From 1948 to 1986 he was employed by LCC/GLC and for the last 21 years served in the Supplies Department from 1974 to 1980 he was departmental Chief Financial Officer (£200 million turnover) and from 1981 to 1986 was divisional head of the Central Reprographics Service.  He is the author of "Cost Effective Print Buying" (Gower).  On choosing redundancy in 1986 he resolved that in the future he would only do things which were interesting or gave him pleasure.  From 1998 to 2011 he provided personal tours of Britain and the near continent to English speaking tourists. In 2007 he developed an interest in global warming and climate change and his library contains 24 books on the subject.  In 1943 he developed an interest in sailing and has owned 8 different boats, three of which he built.  At the age of 85 he decided to slow down and now 87 he concentrates on climate change.

Ralph Baldwin is a graduate in Conservations Management, Data/Business Analyst and lover of the British Countryside. He is a political activist of over thirty years and an ex-Councillor who left Labour after helping Margaret Hodge defeat the BNP due to the destructive and callous nature of the Hard Left.  Since Joining the Conservatives Ralph has fallen in love with the Cobservative Party and he is passionate about battling political extremism and re-building faith in both conservatism and moderate politics.  As one progresses on the journey one is realising how wise Margaret Thatcher truly was.....

For the last 35 years Torquil has specialised as a legal journalist in comparative criminal procedure. He has been published in, amongst others, The Independent, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Law Journal. He is theauthor of“The European Constitution against the British Constitution”, with a Foreword by Nigel Farage MEP, and in 2010 another booklet “The Coming Tsunami” about the very different systems of criminal justice and of policing that the UK might have thrust upon it from Brussels, with a Foreword by Christopher Gill, Hon, President, the Freedom Association.

Michael Wood dropped out of art school and worked in agriculture until accepted for business training by a leading Japanese trading house. Working for major Japanese, Dutch and German firms he was involved in International trade from the mid sixties to his retirement in 2010. His career focus was mainly on agricultural products and he developed extensive knowledge of shipping and storage of perishables. He travelled widely and has lived and worked in Nigeria, Ukraine, Central Asia as well as the EU (Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg). He became involved in information technology in the late 90s and was engaged by LM Ericsson to advise on a mobile telephone business model applicable to sparsely populated developing countries in Central Asia.

Prior to retirement he was CFO and GM of a London based manufacturing, warehousing and property company. The manufacturing division sourced raw materials and parts from Italy, UK, China, Taiwan and India.

After retirement he has concentrated on writing and illustrating children’s books as Evelyn Wood (his middle name). He lives in Kent with his wife, a lawyer, and writes on a variety of subjects including disability issues.

Dr Lee Rotherham has been engaged in Brexit prep since before it was fashionable. He has been an adviser to three Shadow Foreign Secretaries, to the Conservative delegate to the Convention that drafted the Lisbon Treaty, to MEPs, a delegate to the Council of Europe, and a range of front benchers. During the referendum, he was Director of Special Projects at Vote Leave. He has been very extensively published by many think tanks, writing on issues across the full spectrum of EU policy.

Lee fought the 2001 General Election as Conservative Candidate in St Helens South - with its infamous butler - and fought the then Europe Minister in Rotherham in 2005.

He has twenty years’ service in the Reserves, including three operational deployments and time spent within Whitehall on Defence and Security work. He is Director of the Brexit think tank The Red Cell, is Executive Director of Veterans for Britain, and Chairman of the project to set up a Museum of Sovereignty. He tweets as @DrBrexit

Before his recent retirement, Dr Jonathan Swift was a Senior Lecturer in International Business & Marketing at Salford Business School, the University of Salford, Manchester. He has also taught at the Manchester Business School, on the Executive MBA programme, and has been involved in socio-linguistic pre-departure training for personnel from major companies who were to go to Latin America to take up positions there. Jonathan has written a number of books: the two most recent being Brexit KBO (2018) published by Cambridge Academic, Cambridge, and Understanding Business in the Global Economy: A Multi-Level Relationship Approach (2017) Macmillan Publishers, London. He has just completed another book entitled: The South American Pacific War: Nationalism, Nitrates, Gunboats and Guano, which deals with the war between and the Peruvian-Bolivian Alliance (1879-1884). His main research interests include foreign languages, culture, military history, and all things dealing with Latin America. He has lived and worked in a number of countries: Brazil, Colombia, Italy, and Mexico, and speaks Spanish.

Daniel Mcilhiney has had an unusual career spanning many industries. He trained as an actor before leaving education to become a minister and preacher. He went on the travel across Europe training people in the art of public speaking and persuasion. He then moved on to work in the field of PR and Politics after becoming deeply engaged in the political system during the Brexit referendum strongly believing that, although it may be of personal detriment to him and his work, he was duty bound to use his skills to seek to get a Leave vote for the good of his country and it’s future. He has since helped to run campaigns for those in the public and private sectors in London, Manchester, Budapest, Berlin and across the United States, he has written speeches and articles and continues to work in politics across the United States and Europe.

As an undergraduate at Oxford, Ariane Loening was old enough to vote NO in the 1975 EEC referendum.  She gained experience of UN agencies and spent the 1980s in West Bengal working in the voluntary sector at grassroots level, developing a forensic approach to socio-political and economic issues before returning to Scotland in 1993. She values, in particular, knowledge of historical background, believing it to be the best way to understand the present.

Daniel Kawczynski MP is Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury and Atcham. The first British MP born in Poland Mr Kawczynski has served on the Foreign Affairs, International Development, Justice and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committees and a former Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and an Advisor to former Prime Minister David Cameron on Eastern and Central European Affairs.

Dr Niall McCrae was a senior lecturer in mental health. Niall campaigned for Brexit in Sutton, one of the few London boroughs to vote to leave the EU. He continues to write on Brexit within his broader theme of democracy and freedom of speech. Regular writer for Salisbury Review. Author of books The Moon and Madness, The Story of Nursing in British Mental Hospitals: Echoes from the Corridors, and Moralitis: a Cultural Virus (with Robert Oulds).

Ahana is an intern with The Bruges Group. An undergrad at Ithaca College, class of 2018, she is studying journalism and politics with a concentration in international relations. In the past, she's written for NVIDIA, PBS NewsHour, and Gannett Newspapers, covering subjects such as artificial intelligence, President Donald Trump's Inauguration, and local news.