Background
Coburn was born on 11 February 1959 in Glasgow, Scotland.
Member of the European Parliament politician
Coburn was born on 11 February 1959 in Glasgow, Scotland.
He studied law at the University of Leeds, although he failed to graduate with a degree.
He was previously an art dealer and a financial trader. He worked as an art dealer and City of London trader before owning a freight company. Coburn contested the seat of Old Bexley and Sidcup in 2010, winning 1,532 votes which put him in fifth place.
He also stood in Bexley and Bromley in the 2012 London Assembly election, finishing fourth.
When the results of the European Parliament elections were declared, his permanent address was listed as Kensington in London. However, during the campaign he lived in a rented property in Edinburgh.
This made him UKIP"s second openly gay Member of the European Parliament, after Nikki Sinclaire. According to Scottish National Party candidate Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, Coburn repeatedly muddled her name at hustings during the European election campaign, when she was standing against him, referring to her as "Pashmina, Jasmine and Tamzin before eventually settling on a combination of "love", "dear" and "honey"." UKIP"s Scottish chairman Misty Thackeray responded by saying "How humourless and thin-skinned are these people trying to make faux outrage stories about a slip of the tongue over a name?.
lieutenant wasn"t mispronounced throughout the entire Euro campaign.
lieutenant was mispronounced once. If memory serves me correctly, David called her Jasmina." Contesting the constituency of Falkirk, he came fourth of five candidates, losing his deposit with 3% of the vote. In 2015, Coburn compared Scottish government minister Humza Yousaf to convicted terrorist Abu Hamza, later apologising and calling it a "joke".
UKIP leader Nigel Farage called it a "joke in bad taste", but parliamentary candidate Tim Wilson in South Northamptonshire quit the party because of "what I can only describe as an Islamaphobic insult, and that"s simply not acceptable".
European Union President Martin Schulz said that the remarks were "not worthy of any elected member". In April 2015, a Wikipedia account operated by Coburn"s office was blocked indefinitely for edit warring over his own page.
Coburn"s office confirmed the edits were by them, and some, but not all, news outlets, attribute those edits to Coburn himself.
Coburn describes himself as a libertarian and he has said he will pursue a hardline "libertarian agenda". He also stated that he wanted businesses to be free of interference from government. He favours the legalisation of recreational drugs, believing that banning drugs causes crime.
He has spoken out against Scottish independence during an interview on the British Broadcasting Corporation"s referendum flagship show Scotland Decides. During this interview he also claimed that UKIP were the most "unracist" political party. Despite being gay himself, he feels that gay marriage should not be allowed as it increases homophobia from religious people and that civil partnerships suffice.
He went on to describe gay marriage supporters of being "Equality Nazis".
In the face of local concerns Coburn has come out in favour of fracking in Falkirk, the constituency he stood for in the 2015 General Election.
Since 2014, he has been a Member of the European Parliament for the Scotland constituency for the United Kingdom Independence Party. In the 2014 European Parliament election, he was elected as Member of the European Parliament for Scotland.