Richard Graham Corbett CBE (born 6 January 1955) is a former British politician who served as the final Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP), from 2017 to 2020. He was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Merseyside West from 1996 to 1999 (under the system that predated the proportional representation regional system) and then for Yorkshire and the Humber from 1999 to 2009, when he lost his seat, and again from 2014 to 2020. He attended Shadow Cabinet meetings and was a member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee. Between January 2010 and February 2014, Corbett was an advisor to the first full-time and long-term President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy. In this capacity, and as a frequent writer and commentator on European affairs, he was voted by a panel of retired diplomats, journalists, academics and think-tankers on 14 November 2012 as the fourth most influential Briton on EU policy, ahead of the Prime Minister. In 2003, Corbett became the first MEP to write a regular personal blog, and in 2015 he became the first British politician to develop and release a phone app. Education Corbett was born in Southport, Lancashire, to parents of working-class background from Wales and London. He attended primary school at Farnborough Road School in Southport. When his father was offered a post as a statistician at the World Health Organization, the family moved to Geneva, Switzerland, and Corbett attended the International School of Geneva (attended at the time mostly by children from UN Agencies in Geneva), where he obtained the International Baccalaureate. He was captain of the football team and also played for the junior team of a Swiss second division club. He won a place at Trinity College, Oxford, the first generation of his family to be able to go to university, and obtained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He was the Secretary of the Labour Club and chairman of the Oxford Committee for Europe. He co-ordinated the Oxford student 'Yes' campaign in the 1975 referendum on membership of the European Community. He also skied for Oxford against Cambridge. Corbett later completed a doctorate in political science at the University of Hull. Political career Before the European Parliament Richard Corbett's activities in the European Students at Oxford led on to him being elected first to the youth board of the European Movement in Britain and