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About Julian Brazier





Sir Julian Brazier TD is a former MP and government minister. A scholar in Maths and Philosophy at BNC Oxford, he worked in the City and in management consulting, co-authoring a major study comparing defence procurement in six NATO nations and Sweden. He served for 13 years as an officer in the TA, including five with Special Forces.

Entering Parliament in 1987, he become the PPS to Gillian Shephard, as a Treasury Minister in 1990 and then as Employment Secretary. He stepped down in 1993 over defence cuts and co-authored a call for a more considered approach. In 1986, he led the opposition to the sale of the MoD housing estate, a campaign which failed to stop the sale but saw the leases extended, from the 25 years announced, to 200 years and the proposed site exchange mechanism abandoned.

He served two Parliaments on the House of Commons Defence Select Committee (1997-2001 and (2010-14), with nine years as a shadow minister in between – including five as spokesman for aviation and shipping. In 2010/11, he was vice chair of the Future Reserves 2020 Commission, and then, in 2014-16, Minister for Reserves in MoD. From 2018-22 he served as honorary colonel of a reserve cyber unit.

No Easy Answers (published 1982) won him accolades from the Daily Telegraph and Evening Standard “A fine old-fashioned broadside into the unprotected underbelly of the MoD. …hair raising stories of inefficiency, bureaucratic thrombosis in the machine, and plain incompetence…” (Neil Collins, City editor). He has been privileged to address RMCS Shrivenham, CHACR and RMA Sandhurst, twelve American universities, the Australian Defence College and the Australian Land Warfare Centre.

Today

He is currently chairman of a security company, and a distinguished fellow of RUSI. He also serves on the Council of the Air League, on the board of the South East Reserve Forces and Cadets Association, as a governor of Ampleforth College and as President of Canterbury Sea Cadets. He is joint patron of the Ukraine Freedom Company, a not-for-profit organisation which delivers equipment, vehicles and medical supplies to the Ukrainian Army.

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