Gisela Stuart

After she had left Parliament, Stuart was appointed by the Conservative government as chair of Wilton Park, an executive agency of the UK Foreign Office dedicated to conflict resolution in international relations, in October 2018.

[4] After doing an apprenticeship in bookselling, she moved to the UK in 1974 in order to improve her English and to do a Business Studies course at Manchester Polytechnic.

[1] In 1994, as Gisela Gschaider, Stuart contested the Worcester and South Warwickshire seat at the European elections[9] for Labour.

[12] Consequently, she argued in favour of British withdrawal from the European Union, becoming one of the leading Eurosceptic figures in the Labour Party.

Despite the predictions of the pundits, Stuart went on to retain the seat at the 2010 general election, against a national tide of Labour defeat.

[10] Stuart is a signatory of the Henry Jackson Society principles, which promote the spread of liberal democracy across the world and the maintenance of a strong military with global expeditionary reach.

[19] She was sworn in as a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 2015, giving her the honorific title "The Right Honourable" for life.

She was succeeded by Preet Gill, a Labour and Co-operative politician, and the first female British Sikh MP.

[26] In the 2019 Dissolution Honours, Stuart was given a life peerage; she initially sat as a non-affiliated peer before becoming a crossbencher.

Other spokespersons for Vote Leave included Conservative MPs Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.

In the BBC's two-hour televised debate on the EU referendum, Stuart appeared on the "Leave" panel, along with the Conservative MPs Andrea Leadsom and Boris Johnson.

[30] Article 50 allows for withdrawal from the European Union by any member state and was invoked for the first and only time by Prime Minister Theresa May on 29 March 2017.

[32] Stuart became the chair of Wilton Park, an executive agency of the UK Foreign Office dedicated to conflict resolution in international relations, on 1 October 2018.

[34] In 2021, Stuart was appointed chair of the Royal Mint Advisory Committee for a term of five years from 1 March 2021 to 28 February 2026.