Meet The Team Behind Britain’s Next Chapter.

Dr Richard Johnson is an academic specialising in electoral politics, constitutions, and Labour Party history. He is the author and editor of several books, including Keeping the Red Flag Flying: The Labour Party in Opposition since 1922 and Sceptical Perspectives on the Changing Constitution of the United Kingdom. He is the co-host of the podcast ‘Since Attlee & Churchill’. He has written widely in the press about the Labour Party, the British constitution, and euroscepticism, including in Tribune, The Guardian, The Spectator, The Telegraph, and UnHerd. He has been a Labour Party member since 2009 and stood for the party locally on several occasions.

Robert Tombs is an academic historian at Cambridge, where he is a Fellow of St John’s College. He specializes in 19^th and 20^th century French history, has served on the Conseil Franco-Britannique, and is a holder of the French Palmes Académiques.  He also writes on British history, in The English and Their History (Allen Lane, 2014) and This Sovereign Isle: Britain in and out of Europe (Allen Lane, 2021), and is presently writing a book on the Union. He is a frequent political commentator in the British and international media and co-editor of the website Briefings for Britain.

Paul Embery is a firefighter and trade union activist. He was the national organiser of Trade Unionists Against the EU and was prominent in the Leave campaign during the EU referendum.

Paul has been a member of the Labour Party since 1994 and is active in the Blue Labour movement. He has written widely about the growing disconnect between the working-class and the Left, including in his 2020 book ‘Despised: why the modern Left loathes the working class’.

Paul is a regular commentator on GB News.

Julian Jessop is an independent economist with nearly four decades of experience gained in the public sector, the City and consultancy, including stints at HM Treasury, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, and Capital Economics. He now works mainly with investment committees and with thinktanks, notably the Institute of Economic Affairs, and is a regular commentator in the media.  

Julian has provided expert testimony to parliamentary select committees on many topics, including Brexit, and is well known around both Westminster and Whitehall. He has a First Class degree in Economics from Cambridge University and further qualifications in both economics and law.

James is a lawyer with specialism in  intellectual property, trade, digital compliance, judicial review, election law and data protection.  He was a Police Tribunal Chairman for 10 years.  He has litigated all IP rights before the courts of several countries. He is a qualified Arbitrator and Mediator member of the Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre (PMAC) of the Unified Patent Court (UPC). For many years he has been an ad hoc advisor to MPs and Ministers, and is an independent councillor in the City of London.

Hilary is the Greater Manchester coordinator for the Social Democratic Party and co-host of the podcast “Take Me Home”. She is treasurer of her crown green bowling league and an active member of the Friends of her local park, where she leads gardening and community activities. She serves on the organising committee of the Battle of Ideas festival in London and helped bring the event to Manchester with the first Battle of Ideas North. 

During her career, Hilary was a founder of First Actuarial and became widely known as the actuary advising the trade union movement, helping deliver the collective DC pension scheme with the Communication Workers Union and Royal Mail.

Rt Hon David Jones served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales and later as Minister of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union. From 2005 until 2024 he was Member of Parliament for the constituency of Clwyd West. A longstanding advocate of national sovereignty and democratic accountability, he played an active role in the debates surrounding the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union and led the Vote Leave campaign in Wales during the 2016 referendum. He now works in consultancy and public policy and continues to contribute to the debate on constitutional reform and the future governance of the United Kingdom.

Claire Fox, Baroness Fox of Buckley, is a crossbench member of the House of Lords, the director of the Academy of Ideas, and the former MEP for the North West England constituency. She is also visiting professor in professional practice at the University of Buckingham, and the co-founder of the residential summer school, The Academy. 

Claire is a frequent media commentator on issues of culture, education, media and free speech, appearing on BBC’s Newsnight, Politics Live and Any Questions? as well as a frequent guest on Times Radio, Talk TV and GB News.

Bob runs his own management consultancy in finance and banking, and is an expert on the off-balance-sheet financing mechanisms of the EU, and the threat they pose both to EU member states and to the global financial system. He has also written on the total cost of EU membership, the UK’s residual liabilities to the EU after Brexit, and the hidden subsidies afforded by the UK to other member states due to Freedom of Movement and Freedom of Incorporation, which remain ongoing. Bob holds a Cambridge B.A. First in Modern languages and an Open University M.A. Distinction in History.

Lord Grayling is a former Secretary of State for Justice and Transport and Leader of the House of Commons. He was the first Cabinet Minister to declare for Brexit in 2016 and played a leading role in the campaign to leave the European Union. He was MP for Epsom and Ewell for 23 years and became a life peer in the Dissolution Honours list in 2024.

Bepi Pezzulli is a corporate counsel, board adviser, and academic with international experience across finance, government, and industry. His research focuses on the use of economic and financial power in foreign policy and national security. His analyses have appeared on CNBC, Rai News, Sky News, Milano Finanza, the NATO Defense College Foundation, The American Banker, The American Thinker, CityAM, The Critic, The Times of Israel, and Bloomberg terminals. He is the Research Editor at Longitude Magazine. He currently serves as Director of Research at Italia Atlantica, a Councillor of the Great British PAC, and a member of Advance UK’s College.