Background
BALFE, Richard Andrew was born on May 14, 1944 in Mildenhall, Suffolk, United Kingdom. Parents: Richard Joseph Balfe and Dorothy Lillias Balfe (née De Cann).
Member of the European Parliament politician
BALFE, Richard Andrew was born on May 14, 1944 in Mildenhall, Suffolk, United Kingdom. Parents: Richard Joseph Balfe and Dorothy Lillias Balfe (née De Cann).
Brook Secondary Modem School, Sheffield. London School of Economics, Bachelor of Science, 1971. Spoken languages: French.
Born in Barton Mills, Mildenhall, Suffolk, Balfe spent time in a children"s home in Sheffield. He began working in a bakery in 1960 and joined USDAW. The following year, he moved to London and worked first for the Crown Agents for Overseas Governments, then at the Foreign Office. In 1970, Balfe resigned from the Foreign Office in order to stand as the Labour Party candidate in Paddington South.
He was unsuccessful, and instead became the Research Officer for the Finer Committee on One-Parent Families.
At the Greater London Council election, 1973, Balfe was elected in Dulwich, serving until 1977. At the first direct elections to the European Parliament, in 1979, Balfe was elected as the Member of the European Parliament for London South Inner.
In late 2001, Balfe stood for election to the post of quaestor in the European Parliament, against instructions from his party group. As a result, he was expelled in January 2002.
In March, he joined the Conservative Party, the first elected Labour politician to do so since Regional Prentice in 1977.
Balfe stood down as an Member of the European Parliament in 2004. In 2008, he was appointed by David Cameron as the Conservatives" trade union envoy. On 19 September 2013 he was created a life peer taking the title Baron Balfe, of Dulwich in the London Borough of Southwark.
Balfe has now taken an active role in "Cambridge Foreign Europe", a local campaign which cites as its purpose ensuring "that people in Cambridge and its wider region fully understand the arguments for continued membership of the European Union".
This activity is in line with his pro-European Union views.
Roman Catholic
During this period, he was also political secretary of the Royal Arsenal Company-operative Society. He held his seat until its abolition in 1999, then won a seat from fourth place on the party list for London.
He supported a single European currency and was a member of the European Movement. In addition to being a member of the group"s steering committee, he is also a patron. On 4 June 2015, Balfe proposed "A BILL TO Make provision to allow European Union citizens who are resident in the United Kingdom to vote in parliamentary elections and to become members of Parliament.
And for connected purposes".
Spouse Susan Jane Honeyford, 1987. Children: Richard, Alexandra, James.