John Redwood

John Redwood (born June 15, 1951, Dover, Kent, England) is a British politician who served in the cabinet of Prime Minister John Major (1993–95) before unsuccessfully challenging Major for leadership of the Conservative Party in 1995.

A ferociously bright student, Redwood was awarded one of the highly prized fellowships of All Souls College, Oxford, when he was only age 21. For some years he combined academic study of philosophy with more-pragmatic work in the form of a job with a leading London merchant bank, Robert Fleming & Co. As one of the young intellectuals on the Conservative right wing, he was well placed to capitalize on Margaret Thatcher’s election as prime minister in 1979. Thatcher in 1983 appointed Redwood the head of her office’s policy unit, where he became one of the driving forces behind the government’s policy of privatizing state-owned industries.

Redwood was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) for the safe Conservative seat of Wokingham, Berkshire, in 1987, and he had to wait only two years before becoming a junior minister at the department of trade and industry and just six years before reaching the cabinet; John Major, Thatcher’s successor, appointed him secretary of state for Wales in 1993. Two years later came the event that catapulted Redwood into the spotlight. Major, exasperated by divisions within the party, particularly on the European Union (EU), resigned as leader and challenged his critics to fight him for his post. Redwood, who had by then established himself as one of the party’s most persuasive voices on free market economics, the EU, and constitutional issues, emerged as a surprise challenger. He resigned from the cabinet and stood as standard-bearer for those right-wing MPs who wanted the government to reduce both taxes and public spending and to adopt more-critical policies toward the EU.

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Although Redwood lost, he impressed many people with the vigour of his campaign and the strength of his support: 89 MPs, compared with the 218 who backed Major. Redwood, with his Euroskepticism and small-government philosophy, had managed to build himself a base within an important section of the party. Having directly opposed Major, however, he found himself exiled to the backbench until Major resigned as party leader in the wake of the Labour landslide in the 1997 general elections. Major’s successor, William Hague, returned Redwood to front-bench politics by appointing him shadow secretary of state for trade and industry, a position he held for the next two years. Redwood later served as shadow secretary of state for the environment, transport and the regions (1999–2000), shadow secretary of state for deregulation (2004–05), chair of the Conservative Party’s Economic Competitiveness Policy Group (2005–10), and chair of the Conservative Parliamentary Economic Affairs Committee (2010– ). He was a vocal supporter of “Brexit” (British withdrawal from the European Union), which was approved by voters in a 2016 national referendum.

Redwood received a knighthood in the 2019 New Year Honours list.