His father, whose family origins are Ulster Catholic,[8] had been educated in the UK and had served in Italy during the Second World War with the North Irish Horse of the British Army.

The words were a deliberate echo of Cato the Elder, the Roman Senator who ended every speech with a call for Carthage to be destroyed: "Carthago delenda est".

[citation needed] Following this intervention when Hannan continued speaking after his allocated time, he was interrupted and had his microphone cut off by Luigi Cocilovo, one of the 14 Vice-Presidents.

It is only my regard for you Mr. Chairman and my personal affection for you that prevents me from likening it to the Ermächtigungsgesetz of 1933 which was also voted through by a parliamentary majority.In response to this the EPP leader, Joseph Daul, initiated proceedings to expel Hannan from the group.

[24] Hannan, who had campaigned against EPP membership since before his election, rejoined his colleagues in the new ECR Group in 2009, and became the first Secretary-General of its attached Euro-party, AECR, subsequently ACRE.

Parliament authorities suggest that Hannan used EU funds for ACRE to support other pet projects, such as his free-trade thinktank, the Initiative for Free Trade (IFT), as well as Conservatives International.

[29] In the following months, Hannan appeared both via satellite and in person on various Fox News shows, including those of Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Neil Cavuto.

[30] Given that the United States was then in the middle of a debate about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Hannan was often asked about the benefits of the British National Health Service.

[11] Along with Douglas Carswell, Hannan is credited with being "part of the hard core who kept the flame of Tory Euroscepticism burning – and tirelessly promoted their own positive, internationalist case for Britain's exit from the EU in parallel to Farage's negative, isolationist one.

He was involved in the creation of the Congress for Democracy, an umbrella organisation for various Eurosceptic groups, which reportedly contained both trade union shop stewards and activists of the UKIP party.

"[39] Seven years later, he began a Daily Telegraph column with "Staying in the single market, or large parts of it, would have saved us a lot of trouble", noting that that statement had long been treated as a "pledge" and used to discredit him.

[41][42] Hannan clarified that what he had always advocated was that after leaving the EU, the UK should rejoin the European Free Trade Association, of which it had been a founding member, and thus retain what benefits of the single market it felt it should.

Given the narrow success of the referendum, he emphasized that it was important that an agreement on the terms of Britain's departure have broad support from both sides, and he believed that would have been a start.

[43] Some of those who responded were not convinced, primarily noting that if that was what Hannan felt, he should have said so "with any kind of force between 2016 and 2019, when it might have changed or meant anything", as Zoe Williams argued in The Guardian.

Conservatives understand that the things they cherish – property rights, parliamentary government, personal freedom, norms of courtesy – take a long time to build up, but can be quickly destroyed.

"[58] Journalist Philip Collins, in Prospect Magazine, writes "Hannan has the constant tra-la-la effusiveness of a man forever on his way home from choral evensong at an Oxford college.

"[53] Hannan argues in his writings and in the media (for example, during an appearance on Question Time on BBC television on 28 May 2009) for ballot initiatives (whereby electors can directly enact legislation as happens in Switzerland), a power of recall (whereby a sitting Member of Parliament can be forced to submit to re-election if enough of the local electorate support this), fixed term parliaments, local and national referendums, open primaries and the abolition of party lists.

Hannan wrote in March 2011, criticizing anti-austerity protesters, stating they "have decided to indulge their penchant for empty, futile, self-righteous indignation".

"[59] A supporter of the 'leave' campaign in the 2016 Brexit vote,[60] Hannan writes regularly about the United Kingdom's future international trade relationship once it leaves the EU.

[64] The IFT briefly changed its name to "Initiative for Free Trade" after it emerged that permission to use the title "Institute", which is protected by law, had not been granted by Companies House and the Business Secretary.

The IFT advisory board[63] includes prominent Brexit advocates such as former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and former Home Secretary Michael Howard.

"[73] In the 2016 United States presidential election, Hannan argued that both main parties had put forward unfit candidates, and urged Americans to vote for the Libertarian, Gary Johnson.

[75] He has claimed the NHS has left Britain with low survival rates for cancers and strokes, a high risk of becoming more ill in hospital, and with constant waiting lists.

Writing in The Telegraph, Hannan said of the media storm provoked by his comments:On a visit to the US, I was asked by an interviewer whether I would recommend a British-style health-care model, paid for out of general taxation.

I replied that all three parties were devoted to the NHS, and that it had public support (although I added that this was at least partly the result of the inaccurate belief that free health care for the poor is a unique attribute of the British system).

"[81] The government's policy on the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union that the Cabinet had discussed at Chequers was published as a White Paper on 12 July 2018[82] for debate in the House of Commons the following week.

[84] He claimed that with Chequers, the UK Government was begging for the kind of deal the EU has with Moldova and Albania, who themselves only sought as a transitional arrangement towards full membership.

[86] Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Hannan has argued that while the Good Friday Agreement was "often spoken about in quasi-religious terms … its flaws have become clearer over time.

[97][98] In 2004, he wrote for the Telegraph that he had attended a training course with a California-based bullfighting school in which he participated in a tienta, which aims to ascertain if cows can be used to breed fighting bulls for the ring.

[99] Additionally, he has written for the specialist English-language bullfighting publication La Divisa, published by Club Taurino of London, a UK-based association for 'aficionados.