Liam Fox
Sir Liam Fox is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for International Trade from 2016 to 2019 and Secretary of State for Defence from 2010 to 2011. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the Member of Parliament for North Somerset, formerly Woodspring, from 1992 to 2024.
Fox studied medicine at the University of Glasgow and worked as a GP and civilian army medical GP before being elected as an MP. After holding several ministerial roles under John Major, Fox served as Constitutional Affairs Spokesman from 1998 to 1999, Shadow Health Secretary from 1999 to 2003, Chairman of the Conservative Party from 2003 to 2005, Shadow Foreign Secretary in 2005 and Shadow Defence Secretary from 2005 to 2010.
In the 2009 expenses scandal, he was the Shadow Cabinet minister found to have the largest over-claim on expenses and, as a result, was forced to repay the most money. In 2010, he was appointed Defence Secretary by Prime Minister David Cameron, a position from which he resigned on 14 October 2011 over allegations that he had given a close friend, lobbyist Adam Werritty, inappropriate access to the Ministry of Defence and allowed him to join official trips overseas.
In July 2016, in the wake of the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union, Fox was appointed the first Secretary of State for International Trade by new Prime Minister Theresa May. He was also made President of the Board of Trade. Fox has twice stood unsuccessfully for the leadership of the Conservative Party, in 2005 and 2016. In July 2019, he lost his cabinet position when new Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed his cabinet.
He was knighted in the 2023 Political Honours for public and political service.
Early life and education
Liam Fox was born and raised in a Roman Catholic family of Irish heritage in East Kilbride, Scotland, and brought up in a council house that his parents later bought. His great-uncle, John Fox, was the Labour Provost of Motherwell, with most of his family being Labour supporters.Along with his brother and two sisters, he was educated in the state sector, attending St Bride's High School in East Kilbride. He then studied medicine at the University of Glasgow, graduating with a MB ChB in 1983. Fox is a former general practitioner, a former Civilian Army General Practitioner and Divisional Surgeon with St John Ambulance.
Parliamentary career
At the 1987 general election, Fox stood as the Conservative Party candidate in Roxburgh and Berwickshire, coming second, with 37.2% of the vote, behind the Liberal Party candidate, Archy Kirkwood.Fox was first elected to Parliament as MP for Woodspring at the 1992 general election with 54.5% of the vote and a majority of 17,509.
In June 1993, Fox was appointed Parliamentary private secretary to the Home Secretary, Michael Howard. Thereafter, in July 1994, he was appointed an Assistant Government Whip. Following a limited government reshuffle in November 1995, he was appointed a Lord Commissioner of Treasury – a Senior Government Whip. He was Parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1996 to 1997.
In 1996, he brokered an accord in Sri Lanka, called the Fox Peace Plan, between Chandrika Kumaratunga's PA and the opposition UNP of Ranil Wickremasinghe, on a bipartisan approach for ending the ethnic war. In 2001, Jonathan Goodhand wrote, "However, little has happened since then to suggest that the various parties would have acted in good faith in the interests of peace."
Fox was re-elected as MP for Woodspring at the 1997 general election with a decreased vote share of 44.4% and a decreased majority of 7,734.
In June 1997, Fox was appointed Opposition Front Bench Spokesman on Constitutional Affairs and joined the Shadow Cabinet in 1998 as the principal spokesman for Constitutional Affairs. Between 1999 and 2003, he was the Shadow Secretary of State for Health.
Fox caused controversy in December 2000, when a joke he had told at a Westminster Christmas party, hosted by Shadow Foreign Secretary Francis Maude, was reported in The Guardian's Diary column. According to the newspaper, Fox had asked a group, which included journalists, whether they had heard his new joke, before continuing: "What do you call three dogs and a blackbird?" No-one knew the answer, and Fox proceeded to finish the joke: "The Spice Girls". He then repeated it. BBC News Online wrote that the joke "could be interpreted as sexist and racist", and reported that Fox admitted telling it. He was told to apologise by the office of party leader William Hague. Fox said in a statement: "In repeating a widely-circulated joke, I very much regret if anyone was offended. I naturally apologise if any offence was caused." Labour MP Denis MacShane told BBC News Online: "Liam Fox's covert and now open racism is an embarrassment to the Tories. William Hague should have sacked him in the summer after he said foreign doctors should sit language tests. Now he makes a racist joke about Mel B and insults every black and Asian creative artist in show business." A spokeswoman for the Spice Girls commented: "One thing is for sure, no one has ever heard of Liam Fox so no one would bother making offensive jokes about him."
At the 2001 general election, Fox was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 43.7% and an increased majority of 8,798.
In November 2003, Fox was appointed campaign manager for Michael Howard following the no-confidence vote against the Conservative's party leader, Iain Duncan Smith. Fox became co-chairman of the party following Michael Howard's elevation to the post of party leader in November 2003.
Fox voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As Shadow Defence Secretary he supported the Government's position of maintaining British troops in Iraq until the security situation allowed for a withdrawal of troops but was critical of the lack of post-invasion planning and poor equipment initially provided to British troops. He supported the idea of the American Surgel, believing that it was successful, and visited Iraq several times as Shadow Defence Secretary.
Fox was again re-elected at the 2005 general election, with a decreased vote share of 41.8% and a decreased majority of 6,016. After the general election he was promoted within the Shadow Cabinet to become Shadow Foreign Secretary.
In September 2005, Fox announced he would join the contest to be the next leader of the Conservative party. His campaign theme for the leadership race was based on the "broken society" theme, which he said Conservatives could address by returning the emphasis to marriage and reforming welfare. In the initial ballot of Conservative MPs, on 18 October 2005, he gained enough support to enter the second ballot two days later. He was eliminated in the second ballot with 51 votes in third place behind David Cameron and David Davis. Cameron, who eventually won the leadership election, gave Fox the role of Shadow Defence Secretary.
In February 2008, Fox spoke in the House of Commons in opposition to the defence provisions in the Lisbon Treaty.
Fox has been an outspoken supporter of the war in Afghanistan and the British presence there. In 2009, he was critical towards some NATO partners for not contributing enough to the effort in the more dangerous southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan.
Prior to the 2010 general election, Fox's constituency of Woodspring was abolished, and replaced with North Somerset. At the general election, Fox was elected as MP for North Somerset with 49.3% of the vote and a majority of 7,862.
On 5 February 2013, Fox voted against a second reading of the Marriage Bill, designed to introduce same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom. He described David Cameron's plans to legalise same-sex marriage as "divisive, ill thought through and constitutionally wrong", arguing that redefining marriage for the majority to satisfy a "small, yet vocal, minority" was not a good basis for a stable, tolerant society.
Fox was re-elected as MP for North Somerset at the 2015 general election with an increased vote share of 53.5% and an increased majority of 23,099.
In late June 2016, Fox announced on LBC that he intended to run for the leadership of the Conservative party once again, after David Cameron resigned following the result of the EU referendum, in which Fox supported leaving the EU. During the announcement of his candidacy, he said that the UK should trigger Article 50 by the end of 2016 so it could leave the EU by 2019, specifying 1 January 2019 as the date on which the UK should leave. He stated that he would not allow freedom of movement to be considered as part of any alternative trade arrangement with the EU. Fox promised to increase defence spending, stating that he would particularly like to see "an increase in the size of the Navy and our cyber capability". He also promised to scrap HS2, spending the £55 billion set aside for the project on regional train lines, cut taxes, cut welfare spending, create a new governmental department for "trade and foreign affairs" and review the aid budget. Fox was eliminated in the first ballot, finishing in last place with 16 votes. Theresa May went on to win the leadership and become Prime Minister and gave Fox the job of International Trade Secretary.
At the snap 2017 general election, Fox was again re-elected, with an increased vote share of 54.2% and a decreased majority of 17,103. He was again re-elected at the 2019 general election, with a decreased vote share of 52.9% and an increased majority of 17,536.
On 8 July 2020, the UK government nominated Fox as a candidate for Director-General of the World Trade Organisation. Fox's main rival for the nomination, the Labour peer Peter Mandelson, was overlooked due to his opposition to Brexit. Fox progressed to the second round of the selection process. He did not become one of the two candidates to enter the final round, who were South Korea's Yoo Myung-hee and Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and was knocked out on 7 October.
In 2021 Fox was the sponsor of a Down Syndrome Bill, an Act to "make provision about meeting the needs of persons with Down syndrome."
In the 2024 general election Fox was defeated by the Labour candidate, Sadik Al-Hassan.