Brigadier Geoffrey Charles Van Orden (born 10 April 1945) is a British politician and former British Army officer who served as Leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament from 2019 to 2020. He was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the East of England region from 1999 to 2020. Early life and career Van Orden was born in Waterlooville, Hampshire in 1945. He attended the Mons Officer Cadet School and was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps in 1964. He read politics at Sussex University from 1966 to 1969. He was promoted Lieutenant in 1966, Captain in 1970, Major in 1977, Lieutenant-Colonel in 1983, Colonel in 1988, and Brigadier in 1991. He began his military career in Borneo during the Confrontation war with Sukarno's Indonesia. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) at the age of 27 for special duties in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s, at the height of the terrorist campaign. He spent many years in Germany, including 5 years in Berlin where, in 1989, he was Chief of Staff of the British Sector and head of the military intelligence staff when the Wall fell. He was a member of the Cabinet office intelligence Assessment Staff. He attended the Indian Defence Services Staff College and was an instructor at the German General Staff College College (Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr) from 1985 to 1988 in Hamburg. His last military appointment was at NATO headquarters in Brussels where he headed the secretariat of the International Military Staff. He resigned his commission in 1995 in order to enter politics. While seeking a parliamentary seat he became a senior advisor in the European Commission in the field of foreign and security policy issues. He held this post until 1999, when he was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for the Conservative Party. European Parliament Defence and security Following his election to the European Parliament, he became the Conservatives' spokesman for Foreign, Defence and Security policy. He was one-time Vice Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and remained a member of that committee and of the Security and Defence (SEDE) sub-committee. He has been the Conservative Defence & Security Spokesman for nearly two decades. He has led the opposition to EU defence integration and advanced the need for revitalisation of the NATO Alliance. He has been active in the promotion of Britain's defence