Roger Helmer (born 25 January 1944) is a British politician and businessman. He was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the East Midlands region from 1999 to 2017. Before becoming an MEP, he was a business executive. Helmer was elected to the European Parliament in 1999, 2004, and 2009 as a member of the Conservative Party and in 2014 as a member of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), having defected from the Conservatives to UKIP in March 2012. He has described himself as a eurosceptic and is a supporter of the Better Off Out campaign. Background Born in London, Helmer attended King Edward VI School, Southampton on a state scholarship (1955–62). He read mathematics at Churchill College, Cambridge, graduating in 1965 with a B.A., subsequently upgraded to an M.A. (Cantab) as per tradition. He began his business career in that year with Procter & Gamble in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, going on to hold senior marketing and general management appointments in a range of companies, including Reader's Digest, National Semiconductor, Coats Viyella and United Distillers. During his business career he lived and worked in various countries. Political career Conservative In September 1998, following his selection as a candidate for the Conservative Party in the East Midlands, Helmer left his job as managing director of a Leicester textile company, Donisthorpe Ltd (the UK subsidiary of a French textile multinational), to campaign full-time ahead of the 1999 euro-elections, and took up his new role as an MEP immediately after his election. He was re-elected as a Conservative MEP for the East Midlands Region in 2004. He was suspended from the Conservative Party whip on 26 May 2005 after voting against party instructions on a motion to censure the European Commission and openly criticising his delegation leader, Timothy Kirkhope, in a parliamentary debate; the Conservative party whip was restored on 13 September 2006, but he remained Non-Inscrit. He joined the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), with the other Conservative MEPs, in July 2009. Having initially advocated the Conservative policy of renegotiating the EU treaties, since 2006 he has been a supporter of the Better Off Out campaign, calling for the UK to leave the EU. He was appointed Adam Smith Scholar in 2005 by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). He became chairman of the libertarian pressure group, The Freedom Association, in April 2007. In November 2009 he stepped down as the Conservative