John Townend

Who is John Townend?

John Ernest Townend is a United Kingdom politician. Educated at Hymers College in Hull, he served in the Royal Air Force as a Pilot Officer from 1957–59 and then worked as an accountant. He was managing director of House of Townend wine merchants in Hull, and was active in local government. He served as a Conservative Party Member of Parliament from 1979 until his retirement in 2001.

Townend was renowned for his controversial views on race and immigration, which got him into trouble from time to time. In 1984 he suggested that foreigners employed in industries should be replaced by unemployed Britons, and in 2001, shortly before his retirement as an MP, he became engulfed in a row within the Tory Party when, referring to a statement by Robin Cook that there was no such thing as a British race, he said that his constituents in Bridlington would not agree, and asked whether Robin Cook therefore thought instead that the British were a "mongrel race". He was chairman of the right-wing 92 Group.