Jonathan Arnott

In April 2019, Arnott announced that he would not be standing for re-election as an MEP at the upcoming European Parliament elections, though he stated that he would be supporting the Brexit Party at that election.

On 1 March 2018 Arnott was one of three UK MEPs who voted against a motion to encourage national parliaments to ban "gay conversion therapies"

On 19 January 2018, Arnott announced his resignation from UKIP. In his resignation letter, he stated that he had lost confidence in UKIP leader Henry Bolton, who he felt was "not the right person for the job" - but thought no better of those "jockeying" for position in the party. He added that UKIP had "shifted" its stance on religious and cultural issues to a degree he could not support.

During the 2017 UKIP leadership election Arnott repeatedly warned that far-right entryists had signed up as members of UKIP in an attempt to take over the party by electing Anne Marie Waters as the next leader. He said that UKIP would be on the verge of dying if this attempt was not thwarted and said that he "could not under any circumstances support Anne Marie Waters".

In June 2017 Arnott published a document called 'Britain Beyond Brexit' which sets out an alternative policy platform and vision for the future of UKIP. This document was a radical departure from the 2017 UKIP manifesto.

In 2017 UKIP revealed a new 'integration agenda' which proposed the banning of Muslim face-coverings in public, disbanding Sharia councils and physical checks on young girls believed to be at risk of female genital mutilation.

In July 2016, Arnott launched his bid to become leader of UKIP following the resignation of Nigel Farage. He gained the support of Yorkshire and the Humber MEP's Jane Collins and Mike Hookem. Arnott said he wanted to appeal to the millions of voters who did not support UKIP in the previous year's general election but backed Brexit in the EU referendum. He withdrew from the contest in August, acknowledging he couldn't win and saying he refused to be controversial just to grab headlines.

Arnott was one of the most vocal internal critics of the infamous 'breaking point' poster that was unveiled in the run-up to the 2016 EU referendum. He described this as "dog-whistle politics."

In the 2015 general election, he was the UKIP representative in the BBC Daily Politics Education Debate and in the young people's Newsbeat debate on the economy and housing. He stood for the Easington constituency–the constituency in which he lived–coming second in the safe Labour seat with 18.7% of the vote, ahead of both the Liberal Democrat and Conservative candidates.

After the 2015 general election, Arnott accused the party of peddling a "toxic message" and "banging on" about immigration which he said lead to "self-inflicted" disappointing results. He also criticised the party's candidate selection process which allowed people with what he called "abhorrent" views to represent the party.

On 25 May 2014, it was announced that Arnott had been elected as UKIP's first ever MEP for North East England. Arnott used his acceptance speech on election night to highlight what he described as an election campaign that had been "marred by a campaign of hate, waged against UKIP by those who fear a realignment of British politics".

On 12 October 2012, Arnott was announced as the UKIP candidate for the Police and Crime Commissioner elections in South Yorkshire coming fourth with 11.54% of the vote.

He has also represented Great Britain at the board game Stratego, helping the British team to the bronze medal at the 2012 World Championships. It was reported that he would be competing again in 2015.

In the 2011 local elections Arnott came second in the Woodhouse ward with 13.1% of the vote, behind the Labour party with 62.9%. He then led UKIP in the 2012 local elections, the party coming fourth overall with 10.25% of votes, up from 1.6% in the comparable 2008 local elections. Arnott himself finished second in Woodhouse ward with 22.1%, behind the Labour party with 60.2% of votes.

In the general election of 2005 he stood as a UKIP candidate for the Sheffield Attercliffe constituency, coming fourth overall with 4.5% of the vote, losing his deposit. Arnott was then selected to contest the Sheffield South East constituency for the 2010 general election. Just before the election, he took part in the second half of a Radio 5 Live debate on crime with Alan Johnson, Chris Grayling and Chris Huhne. He spoke four times, calling for a reduction in police bureaucracy, abolition of jail sentence remission and rehabilitation of offenders. Arnott came fifth with 4.6% of the vote, losing his deposit but increasing the UKIP vote by 0.2%.

Arnott is a chess enthusiast who is a Candidate Master, former member of the England Under-21 squad and captained the Yorkshire county side from 2002–04. He regularly competes in the 4NCL international chess league and the Gibraltar International chess festival. He represented White Rose in the European Club Cup in 2010 and 2011, with the team finishing as the top British side by 20 places in 2011. His highest rating of 2191 was achieved in 2012 and his rating of 2173 in July 2015 ranks him 169th in England and 12281 in the world.

Arnott joined UKIP in 2001, and stood in the 2004 and 2009 European elections, being the party's No.2 list candidate in the Yorkshire and the Humber region on both occasions. Until 2008 he was the part-time local elections co-ordinator for the party, working with 300 candidates to increase the number of UKIP councillors. At the 2008 UKIP conference, Arnott was unveiled as the new party General Secretary. Arnott resigned as General Secretary—after six years in the position—in August 2014.

Jonathan William Arnott (born 12 January 1981) is a British politician and former schoolteacher. After the 2014 European Parliament election, he served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the North East England region. Originally sitting as a UK Independence Party (UKIP) representative, he resigned from the party on 19 January 2018 to sit as an independent until designating as Brexit Party on 17 April 2019.