Rodney Atkinson

In 2000, he lost the UKIP leadership election, by 16 votes, to Jeffrey Titford MEP. Atkinson left UKIP shortly afterwards, along with 200 supporters, accusing the then party chairman Nigel Farage MEP and the eurosceptic journalist Christopher Booker of conducting a "dirty tricks" campaign against him. He also accused the party of being "infiltrated by extremists".

Atkinson founded The Campaign for United Kingdom Conservatism in 1994 and co-founded, with Lynn Riley, the cross-party South Molton Declaration in 1999 (re-launched as the British Declaration of Independence for the 2005 general election). He founded the Freenations (freenations.net) website in 1997. He was the Referendum Party candidate in North West Durham in the 1997 general election (5.2%) and the lead UK Independence Party (UKIP) candidate for the North East Region in the 1999 European Elections (8.8%).

In 1994, Atkinson co-authored the book Treason at Maastricht – the destruction of the Nation State, with Norris McWhirter.

With Norris McWhirter, he laid misprision of treason charges against Francis Maude and Douglas Hurd for signing the Maastricht Treaty. The allegations were dismissed by the Crown Prosecution Service in October 1993, according to a written answer given by the Attorney General, Nicholas Lyell, on 28 October 1993.

Other work includes the books Government against the People (1985), The Emancipated Society (1988), The Failure of the State (1989), Your country Your Democracy – the Threat from the European Union (1990), Europe's Full Circle (1997), Fascist Europe Rising (2001) and And into the Fire – fascist elements in post war Europe and the Development of the European Union (2013).

Atkinson studied German at Newcastle University (BA Hons with distinction in spoken German) and at Durham University, where he earned an MSc in management studies in 1978 as a member of Collingwood College. He was formerly a lecturer at the University of Mainz from 1971 to 1977, and worked as a merchant banker in the City of London with Banque Paribas and Grindlays Bank and has been an occasional adviser to government ministers since 1981.

Rodney Eric Bainbridge Atkinson (born 1948) is a British academic, political and economic commentator, journalist, author and businessman. He is the older brother of the comedian and actor Rowan Atkinson.