William Francis Newton Dunn (born 3 October 1941) is a British politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1979 to 1994, 1999 to 2014 and again from 2019 until the UK's withdrawal from the EU in 2020.

[1] Born at Greywell, Hampshire, son of Lieutenant-Colonel Owen Frank Newton Dunn, OBE and Barbara née Brooke, he was educated at Marlborough College, Wiltshire from 1955 to 1959.

After a spell out of parliament, Newton Dunn was re-elected a Conservative MEP for the East Midlands in 1999, after the UK adopted systems of proportional representation generally rather than merely for Northern Ireland.

He crossed the floor to the Liberal Democrats in 2000 because he felt that the Conservatives were increasingly negative towards the prospect of Britain playing a leading and positive role in Europe.

This phrase first appeared in the manifesto of the Young European Federalists adopted at their congress in Berlin in 1977 (drafted by the future Labour MEP Richard Corbett).