Daniel John Hannan, Baron Hannan of Kingsclere (born 1 September 1971) is a British writer, journalist and former politician serving as an adviser to the Board of Trade since 2020. He is the founding president of the Initiative for Free Trade. A member of the Conservative Party, he was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 1999 to 2020. Hannan was the first secretary-general of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe (ACRE), serving from 2009 to 2018. He was one of the founders of Vote Leave, one of the organisations that campaigned to leave the EU in 2016, and served on its board throughout the referendum. He played a prominent role in the referendum campaign, participating in a number of public debates. He stood down from the European Parliament at the United Kingdom's exit from the EU in 2020. Lord Hannan of Kingsclere has written columns for The Sunday Telegraph, the International Business Times, ConservativeHome, and the Washington Examiner, as well as occasional columns in the Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Sun, The Spectator, and The Wall Street Journal. He is editor-in-chief of The Conservative, a quarterly journal of centre-right political thought. He has published several books. Early life Hannan was born on 1 September 1971 in Lima, Peru. His mother was a Scot who had been working in the British Embassy in Lima. His father, whose family origins are Ulster Catholic, had been educated in the UK and had served in Italy during the Second World War with the North Irish Horse of the British Army. Hannan grew up on his parents' farm outside Lima, attending school and university in Britain. He was educated at Winchester House School and Marlborough College. Hannan read Modern History at Oriel College, Oxford. He was active in university politics, being elected President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in 1992 – when Nicky Morgan was his opponent. As an undergraduate, he established the Oxford Campaign for an Independent Britain in 1990, a group which campaigned against closer EU integration – a theme that was to shape his later career. On 12 September 1992, he organised a protest at the EU finance ministers' summit in Bath against membership of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Three days later, the pound was forced to leave the system in an event known as Black Wednesday. In an