Diane James is a British politician who represented the South East of England in the European Parliament, one of ten MEPs elected for the region. At the time of the archived page she sat as an independent with no party affiliation.
Political career
Her political life began with election in 2006 to Waverley Borough Council in Surrey. She served for nine years, sitting on a planning committee and chairing an overview and scrutiny committee. According to the profile, the experience of watching EU directives limit decisions made in the UK was what turned her towards Euroscepticism.
She later joined UKIP and stood in the 2013 Eastleigh by-election in Hampshire, narrowly missing victory. In 2014 she was chosen as a candidate for the European Parliament elections and was elected for the South East. She took a visible role in the 2016 referendum campaign through media appearances, rallies and speeches.
Committee work
Her committee interests included healthcare topics, with attention to the environment and public health committee and the internal market and consumer protection committee, which covers the Digital Single Market. The priority named in the profile was the Constitutional Affairs Committee, which oversees Parliament’s contribution to the EU’s Brexit negotiating strategy.
Before politics
For more than thirty years she worked in healthcare and pharmaceuticals in Britain and overseas. She started at large drug companies, moved into consultancy, and in 1997 set up her own consultancy firm. Its work focused on how organisations should respond to the government’s health reforms, and involved dealing with departments including the Treasury, the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Health.
Later she took part in groups supporting healthcare innovation in the UK, including chairing a regional NHS innovation and transformation body and serving on the board of a venture capital trust health fund.
This summary is based on an archived profile and may be out of date. For her published commentary, see the Brexit Briefings.