Robin Tilbrook | |
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Chairman of the English Democrats | |
Assumed office 2002 |
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Personal details | |
Political party |
English Democrats (2002 - present) Conservative Party (prior to 1997) |
Robin Tilbrook (born 1958) is a solicitor and English politician, the chairman and a founder member of the English Democrats, a political party that advocates English independence.
Tilbrook was born in Kuala Lumpur, Federation of Malaya, in 1958. He was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, gained a BA (Hons) in Politics and Economics from the University of Kent at Canterbury, and then studied at The College of Law, Chester.
He was a Coldstream Guardsman, and has worked in a factory, in junior management, and as a teacher at primary and secondary level. He is a solicitor in Essex.
On 27 September 2011, he was awarded Honorary Freedom of the City of London.
He was a member of the Conservative Student Association and a member of the Conservative Party, at one time a Conservative candidate for Ongar Town council. He co-founded the English National Party in 1997, and then helped to relaunch the party as the English Democrats in 2002 to campaign for an English Parliament. He is also the leader and nominating officer. He has stood as a candidate for the English Democrats in local, parliamentary and European elections. Standing in Epping Forest, he received 1.4% of the vote in the 2005 general election, 4.4% at 2005 Essex County Council election, 18.2% in the 2007 Epping Forest District Council election, and 11.3% in the 2009 County Council election. He gained 2.01% of the vote as the lead candidate for the East of England region in the 2009 European election. He says of the English Democrats that "We're hoping to do what the Scottish National Party managed to do in the 1970s and break through to being able to influence what happens in Parliament about England". Tilbrook says "his party agitates for anyone living in England. His notion of Englishness is akin to American notions of "Americanness" – that you can be from any ethnic background and still wrap yourself in the flag." He has criticised spending on St. Patrick's Day in London when he says too little is spent on St. George's Day. He argues that the money given by the UK to the EU is given to other parts of the country at the expense of England, which makes his party Eurosceptic.