Sajjad Karim, English lawyer and politician
Sajjad Haider Karim (born 11 July 1970) is a British politician. He served as a Member of the European Parliament for the North West England between 2004 and 2019.
Sajjad is one of 10 members of the executive of European Movement UK and Chair of Conservative European Forum Trade.
He is a solicitor by profession and has been the Legal Affairs Spokesman for the Conservatives in the European Parliament since 2009.
As well as having been a Spokesman to the WTO, Sajjad Chair's the European Parliament's South Asia Trade Monitoring Committee; South Caucasus Delegation and is rotating chair of the Advisory Committee on the Conduct of Members. He also serves as the vice-president of the European Parliament's Anti-Racism & Diversity Intergroup (ARDI) and as chair of its Working Group on Islamophobia.
In 2014 he was the European Conservatives and Reformists candidate for President of the European Parliament.
Karim has developed extensive experience in Trade related issues including being the Parliamentary Rapporteur for an EU-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA). 2019 he was named as Dodds Parliament Magazine winner of the International Trade Award.
In 2015, he was given the highest National Honour bestowed upon foreigners by Pakistan for his role in securing a British Government lead initiative delivering favourable market access for Pakistan to the EU, known as the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP+).Through Parliament, Karim has delivered reforms which deliver exemptions for SMEs from regulation and new powers for national parliaments in EU decision-making.
On 19 August 2020, Karim tweeted his concerns at the current Government's lack of commitment to human rights, which was misreported by some in the media.