Matthew Elliott (politics)

Matthew Jim Elliott (born 12 February 1978^[1]) is a British political strategist and lobbyist who has served as the Chief Executive of a number of organisations and been involved in various successful referendum campaigns, including Vote Leave.

Elliot was the founder and has served as chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, Big Brother Watch and Business for Britain.

He has also seen success as a political strategist, acting as campaign director for the successful NOtoAV campaign in the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum. In 2015, Elliot became the chief executive of Vote Leave, the official organisation advocating for a 'leave' vote in the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016.

His success in managing referendum campaigns has led to him being described as "...one of the most successful political campaigners in Westminster today."^[2]

Career

Elliot served as press officer for the European Foundation from 2000, and political secretary to Timothy Kirkhope MEP from 2001.^[1]

Lobbying

In 2004, Elliot co-founded the TaxPayers’ Alliance with Andrew Allum. He served as Chief Executive of the organisation until 2014.

In 2009, he founded the civil liberties and privacy pressure group Big Brother Watch, in response to “the prevailing climate of authoritarian and intrusive policies being pursued by the British state”.

Referendums

In 2011, he took a sabbatical to act as Campaign Director for the NOtoAV campaign during the UK Alternative Vote referendum. NOtoAV were successful in maintaining the current voting system,^[3] receiving 67.9% of the votes cast.^[4] He is credited with helping to turn public opinion against the alternative vote, from 2 to 1 in favour to 2 to 1 against. The large victory for the NOtoAV campaign led to Elliot being praised as "...one of the most successful political campaigners in Westminster today". Tim Montgomerie wrote that "At the moment, he's there at the very top of centre-right campaigners in Britain...He does all the things that a successful campaigner needs to do. He has message discipline, he takes opinion research incredibly seriously, he's intelligent and works hard.'^[2]

Vote Leave

Vote Leave campaign material

In October 2015, Elliot became the Chief Executive of Vote Leave, a crossparty organisation formed to campaign to leave the European Union (EU).^[5] Vote Leave later became the official campaigning organisation to leave the EU, after having been awarded the status by the Electoral Commission. The organisation managed to recruit the support of a number of high profile politicians, including Conservative MPs Boris Johnson and Michael Gove who became key figureheads.

Despite a widespread belief that the Vote Leave campaign was heading for defeat, 52% of the electorate voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, therefore meaning that Elliot's campaign emerged victorious. Upon victory, Elliot was praised alongside Vote Leave Campaign Director, Dominic Cummings, as being one of the key masterminds of the victorious campaign.^[6]

Personal life and education

Elliott was born in Leeds and attended Leeds Grammar School. He graduated with a First in BSc Government from the London School of Economics in 2000.^[7] In 2008, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.^[1] Since 2014, he has been a trustee of the Social Affairs Unit, a right-leaning think-tank.^[8]

Elliott has been described by the BBC as “one of the most effective lobbyists at Westminster”,^[9] and in 2010 was named by Total Politics magazine as one of the top 25 political influencers in the UK.^[10]

References