Neil Hamilton, Welsh lawyer and politician
Mostyn Neil Hamilton (born 9 March 1949) is a British politician, former barrister and former teacher who has been leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) since 2020. He was the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Tatton from 1983 to 1997 and a UKIP Member of the Senedd (MS) for Mid and West Wales from 2016 to 2021.
Hamilton was elected to the House of Commons in the 1983 general election. He was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Corporate Affairs by Prime Minister John Major in 1992.
In 1994, The Guardian alleged that Hamilton had taken cash payments in exchange for asking questions in Parliament. Hamilton sued The Guardian for libel, but settled on the day of the trial. The Guardian published a headline branding him "A Liar and a Cheat". The cash-for-questions affair enquiry in 1997 found that Hamilton had taken bribes. He subsequently lost a libel case on the matter.
Hamilton became widely associated with sleaze; he was forced to resign his ministerial role in 1994. He was defeated by Martin Bell in the 1997 general election.
He left the Conservative Party in 2002, and joined UKIP. In 2011, he returned to politics and was elected to the National Executive Committee of UKIP in 2011. Following his election to the National Assembly for Wales, he was UKIP Assembly Group Leader from 2016 to 2018 and again from 2019 to 2021. He became leader of UKIP Wales in 2016. In September 2020, Hamilton was named acting leader of UKIP, following the suspension from the party of the previous leader, Freddy Vachha. Hamilton was defeated at the 2021 Senedd election. In October 2021, Hamilton was elected UKIP leader.Due to his television appearances, The Guardian described him as "an all-purpose Z-list celebrity".