Sajjad Haider Karim (born 11 July 1970) is a British politician. He served as a Member of the European Parliament for the North West England between 2004 and 2019. Sajjad is one of 10 members of the executive of European Movement UK and Chair of Conservative European Forum Trade. He is a solicitor by profession and has been the Legal Affairs Spokesman for the Conservatives in the European Parliament since 2009. As well as having been a Spokesman to the WTO, Sajjad Chair's the European Parliament's South Asia Trade Monitoring Committee; South Caucasus Delegation and is rotating chair of the Advisory Committee on the Conduct of Members. He also serves as the vice-president of the European Parliament's Anti-Racism & Diversity Intergroup (ARDI) and as chair of its Working Group on Islamophobia. In 2014 Karim was the European Conservatives and Reformists candidate for President of the European Parliament. He has developed extensive experience in Trade related issues including being the Parliamentary Rapporteur for an EU-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA). In 2015, he was given the highest National Honour bestowed upon foreigners by Pakistan for his role in securing a British Government lead initiative delivering favourable market access for Pakistan to the EU, known as the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP+). Through Parliament, Karim has delivered reforms which deliver exemptions for SMEs from regulation and new powers for national parliaments in EU decision-making. In 2019 he was named as Dodds Parliament Magazine winner of the International Trade Award. On 19 August 2020, Karim tweeted his concerns at the current Government's lack of commitment to human rights, which was misreported by some in the media. Early life Sajjad, a British Pakistani, was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, on 11 July 1970. His family hails from Mandi Bahauddin, Punjab, Pakistan. Karim attended Walter Street County Primary School Brierfield and thereafter Mansfield High School, Brierfield. He completed his A levels at Nelson and Colne College before studying law at university. He attended the College of Law in Chester, studying law. He qualified as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales in 1997 and rose to becoming an equity partner quickly, specialising in cases of serious fraud defence work. His earliest political activity started with leafleting at the age of seven for the then Conservative parliamentary candidate for Pendle. He later joined the Liberal Democrats in 1989. Karim was elected a member of Pendle