Gisela Stuart, German-English academic and politician
Gisela Stuart, Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (née Gschaider; born 26 November 1955) is a British-German politician and life peer who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Edgbaston from 1997 to 2017. A former member of the Labour Party, she now sits as a non-affiliated member of the House of Lords.
Born and raised in West Germany, Stuart moved to the United Kingdom in 1974. Elected for Birmingham Edgbaston at the 1997 general election, she was chair of the Vote Leave Campaign Committee and was one of its most high-profile figures, along with the Conservative MPs Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. The Vote Leave campaign was successful in achieving its goal at the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum of winning a majority of votes for Leave. From 2016 to 2020, she served as chair of Vote Leave's successor organisation, Change Britain.
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. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Constitution Reform Group (CRG), a cross-party organisation chaired by Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury, which seeks a new constitutional settlement in the UK by way of a new Act of Union. The Constitution Reform Group's new Act of Union Bill was introduced as a Private Member's Bill on 9 October 2018.
1955Nov, 26
Gisela Stuart
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Events on 1955
- 7Jan
Metropolitan Opera
Contralto Marian Anderson becomes the first person of color to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera. - 13Feb
Dead Sea Scrolls
Israel obtains four of the seven Dead Sea Scrolls. - 18Feb
Nevada Test Site
Operation Teapot: Teapot test shot "Wasp" is successfully detonated at the Nevada Test Site with a yield of 1.2 kilotons. Wasp is the first of fourteen shots in the Teapot series. - 14May
Warsaw Pact
Cold War: Eight Communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact. - 23Oct
State of Vietnam referendum, 1955
Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm defeats former emperor Bảo Đại in a referendum and founds the Republic of Vietnam.