Godfrey William Bloom TD (born 22 November 1949) is a British politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Yorkshire and the Humber from 2004 to 2014. He was elected for the UK Independence Party in the European elections of 2004 and 2009, representing UKIP until September 2013, when UKIP withdrew the party whip from him. He then sat as an Independent until the end of his term of office in May 2014. Bloom subsequently resigned his UKIP party membership on 13 October 2014. During his tenure, he received attention for making remarks considered objectionable by his party leader, for his opinions concerning climate change and for making other controversial comments. On 20 September 2013, UKIP withdrew the party whip from Bloom after he hit journalist Michael Crick in the street with a conference brochure, threatened a second reporter, and at the party's conference jokingly referred to his female audience as sluts. Bloom resigned his party whip from UKIP on 24 September 2013 and thereafter sat as an Independent MEP until the end of his term in office on 2 July 2014. Nigel Farage, the UKIP party leader, has been cited by Channel 4 News to say that "the trouble with Godfrey is that, he is not a racist, he's not an extremist or any of those things and he's not even anti-women, but he has a sort-of-rather old-fashioned territorial army sense of humour which does not translate very well in modern Britain". Bloom was removed as Honorary President of the Ludwig von Mises Centre in December 2017, the organisation citing his comments on Twitter. Early life Bloom was born on 22 November 1949, the son of Alan Bloom and his wife, Phyllis. His father served as a fighter pilot during the Second World War. Bloom was educated at St Olave's Grammar School. Military Bloom was commissioned into the Royal Corps of Transport (Territorial Army) in 1977. attending the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst for the two week course for territorials and the Royal College of Defence Studies. In 1992 he was promoted to the rank of major. He left the TA in 1996. Professional career Bloom worked as a financial economist. In 1996 he was part of Francis Maude's regulatory consultancy panel from which he later resigned. In his last position, he worked as the director of the investment company TBO in which he is a