Patrick Mercer

Patrick John Mercer is an English author and former politician. He was elected as a Conservative in the 2001 general election, until resigning the party's parliamentary whip in May 2013 following questions surrounding paid advocacy, and was an Independent MP representing the constituency of Newark in Parliament until his resignation at the end of April 2014 when a Standards Committee report recommended suspending him for six months for "sustained and pervasive breach of the house's rules". He was Conservative shadow homeland security minister from 2003 to 2007, when David Cameron forced him to resign after he had made remarks about racism which Cameron found unacceptable.