Paul Sykes (born 1943) is a British businessman, political donor, and friend and associate of the eurosceptic populist politician Robert Kilroy-Silk. He is a vehement opponent of the European Union and is noted for his belief that it represents a conspiracy to create an undemocratic superstate. In October 2004, he was estimated to have donated £6 million to eurosceptic campaigns. 1943 (MCMXLIII) is a common year starting on Friday. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Campaign finance refers to the means by which money is raised for political election campaigns. ... Euroscepticism is scepticism about, or disagreement with, the purposes of the European Union, sometimes coupled with a wish to preserve national sovereignty. ... Populism is a political philosophy or rhetorical style that holds that the common persons interests are oppressed or hindered by the elite in society, and that the instruments of the state need to be grasped from this self-serving elite and used for the benefit and advancement of the... Robert Kilroy-Silk Robert Kilroy-Silk (born 19 May 1942) is a British politician and is well-known as the presenter of his former daytime television confessional talk show Kilroy. ... Look up Conspiracy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Conspiracy, as a legal term, is an agreement of two or more people either to commit a crime or to achieve a lawful end by unlawful means: see conspiracy (crime), and conspiracy (civil). ... Dictatorship - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... A superstate is an aglomeration of nations, often linguistically and ethnically diverse, under a single political-administrative structure. ...

Business career

Sykes was born in Barnsley, the son of a miner, and left school with no qualifications. He had various manual jobs before setting up a business at the age of 18 to dismantle old buses and sell the engines as scrap to developing countries in the Far East. He later moved into property development and built the Meadowhall shopping complex in Sheffield. His internet firm Planet Online was for a time Britain's largest internet service provider, and in 1998 Sykes sold it for £85 million to Energis. As of 2004, he commands an estimated wealth of some £500 million. Barnsley is a large town in South Yorkshire, England, lying on the River Dearne, approximately twenty kilometres north of Sheffield. ... The El Chino Mine located near Silver City, New Mexico is an open-pit copper mine This article is about mineral extraction. ... Coloured world map indicating Human Development Index (as of 2003). ... Far East is an inexact term often used for East Asia and Southeast Asia combined, sometimes including also the easternmost territories of Russia, i. ... Meadowhall is a large shopping centre located three miles northeast of central Sheffield, England. ... Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough in the north of England. ... Planet Online was a UK business to business Internet Service Provider in Leeds that was acquired by Energis in 1998 and stopped being called Planet Online in around 2000. ... An Internet service provider (ISP, also called Internet access provider) is a business or organization that offers users access to the Internet and related services. ...

Political involvement

A former member of the Conservative Party, Sykes left the party in 1991 in a dispute over the Maastricht Treaty. In the 1997 general election he selectively funded eurosceptic Conservative candidates, and in 1998 pledged to "use every means possible" to persuade British voters to say no in a referendum on the single currency, saying he would "raise hellfire to get the message across". The following year he began making large donations to the cross-party Democracy Movement, a successor to James Goldsmith's Referendum Party. He also donated £500,000 to Denmark's successful anti-euro campaign. The Conservative Party is the largest political party on the right-of-centre in the United Kingdom. ... The Maastricht Treaty (formally, the Treaty on European Union) was signed on 7 February 1992 in Maastricht between the members of the European Community and entered into force on 1 November 1993, under the Delors Commission. ... The UK general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997. ... A referendum (plural: referendums or referenda) or plebiscite is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. ... The euro (symbol: €; banking code: EUR) is the single currency of the following twelve European Union member states: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain; collectively also known as the eurozone. ... The Democracy Movement is a crossparty Eurosceptic pressure group in the UK with around 150 local branches. ... Sir James Goldsmith (1933 - 1997) was a British businessman and founder of the Euro-sceptic Referendum Party. ... The Referendum Party were a single-issue party in the United Kingdom formed to contest the 1997 General Election. ...

In 2000 he rejoined the Conservative Party, led at the time by William Hague, but was expelled shortly before the 2001 election. Sykes donated almost £1,500,000 to the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) for advertising during the 2004 elections to the European Parliament, making him the primary source of funding for the party. He subsequently admitted that UKIP's fourfold increase in seats at the election was a result of the party having "more loot" than the others.^[1] When Robert Kilroy-Silk, elected as one of UKIP's MEPs, criticised the leadership of Roger Knapman and expressed an interest in replacing him, Sykes announced his intention to cease funding of UKIP and appeared with Kilroy-Silk in television interviews to discuss the party and its leadership. In September 2004 he called for Kilroy-Silk to be made leader of the party. William Hague The Right Honourable William Jefferson Hague (born March 26, 1961) is a British politician, the Member of Parliament for Richmond, North Yorkshire, former leader of the Conservative Party, and currently Shadow Foreign Secretary. ... The UK general election, 2001 was held on 7 June 2001 and was dubbed the quiet landslide by the media. ... The United Kingdom Independence Party (commonly known as UKIP, pronounced you-kip) is a Eurosceptic political party that aims at British withdrawal from the European Union. ... Elections to the European Parliament were held from June 10, 2004 to June 13, 2004 in the 25 member states of the European Union, using varying election days according to local custom. ... The European Parliament is the parliamentary body of the European Union (EU), directly elected by EU citizens once every five years. ... A Member of the European Parliament (English abbreviation MEP) is a member of the European Unions directly-elected legislative body, the European Parliament. ... Roger Maurice Knapman (born February 20, 1944) is a British politician, and is the current leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). ...

Notes

1. ^  The Times (28 June 2004)

References

• Profile: Paul Sykes (5 October 2004). BBC News.
• Paul Sykes on the EU Constitution (28 October 2004). BBC News.