| Adam Holloway | |
| Office: | Member of Parliament for Gravesham |
| Parliament: | United Kingdom |
| Term Start: | 5 May 2005 |
| Term End: | 30 May 2024 |
| Predecessor: | Chris Pond |
| Successor: | Lauren Sullivan |
| Birth Date: | 29 July 1965 |
| Birth Place: | Faversham, Kent, England |
| Party: | Conservative |
| Education: | Magdalene College, Cambridge (MA) Imperial College London (MBA) Royal Military Academy Sandhurst |
| Allegiance: |  United Kingdom |
| Branch: | British Army |
| Serviceyears: | 1987–1991 |
| Rank: | Captain |
| Unit: | Grenadier Guards |
| Battles: | Gulf War |
| Mawards: | (Gulf Medal) |
Adam James Harold Holloway (born 29 July 1965) is a British Conservative Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Gravesham from 2005-2024.[1] A Government Whip from September to October 2022, and previously an Assistant Government Whip from July to September 2022,[2] he served on the Home Affairs Select Committee and European Scrutiny Committee. He was a vocal supporter of pro-Brexit lobby group Leave Means Leave.[3]
Before entering Parliament, Holloway served in the British Army's Grenadier Guards for five years, seeing action in the Gulf War and in Germany. After the Army he was a reporter for ITN and ITV where he produced the award-winning programme "No Fixed Abode" (1991), in which he spent three months homeless on the streets of London.
Holloway was born at Faversham, Kent, the son of the Revd Roger Holloway OBE (died 2010). He was privately educated at Cranleigh School in Surrey. He then spent his gap year with the Afghan Resistance during the Soviet-Afghan War.[4] He then went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read social and political sciences, graduating as BA (proceeding MA). He returned to Afghanistan, visited Nicaragua during the Nicaraguan Revolution and taught in Soweto and South Africa during his university summer holidays.[5]
Holloway later completed an MBA at Imperial College London.
After graduating from university, Holloway attended the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, from which he was commissioned into the British Army's Grenadier Guards in 1987. He served as an Armoured Infantry officer in the British Army on the Rhine.
Holloway served in the Gulf War as a Captain in 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards. The Grenadier Guards fought in the Battle of Norfolk as part of the 1st Armoured Division.
After leaving the Army in 1991, Holloway worked as an investigative journalist and reporter with ITN and ITV.With ITV, he produced an award-winning documentary series for the ITV programme World in Action, called "No Fixed Abode" (1991). In this series he locked access to his bank account and "slept rough" on the streets of London, for three months, in order to shed light on the difficulties experienced by the metropolis' homeless, particularly those who are mentally ill.[6] Whilst a Member of Parliament in 2018, he rough slept for seven days to experience how homelessness has changed in the past three decades.[7]
In the ITV series Disguises, Adam was trained by two clinical psychiatrists and posed as a schizrophrenic in various English cities.[8] He also went undercover as a Bosnian Muslim fleeing ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and experienced people smuggling firsthand.[9]
With ITN, Holloway was its Bosnian correspondent during the siege of Sarajevo.[10] Holloway was also with ITV's News at 10, where, as the lead investigator, he exposed a Filipino child prostitution ring by posing as a paedophile.[11]
His other journalistic work includes living in the Sangatte refugee camp in Calais while pretending to be an economic migrant and being a war reporter in Iraq alongside Marie Colvin of The Sunday Times.[12] [13]
Holloway was elected in the 2005 general election to represent the Kent constituency of Gravesham, defeating a former Labour minister, Chris Pond, by just 654 votes, but with one of the largest swings from Labour to Conservative in the country at 4.9% at that general election. This was the first time since the Second World War that Gravesham (or its predecessor Gravesend constituency) had not been held by the party of Government.[14]
He delivered his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 28 June 2005, praising his constituency's multicultural community and raising issues of local crime.[15]
In a 2009 report written by Holloway, he described how some of the claims about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, used to support the UK Government's case for war in 2003, originated from an Iraqi taxi driver.[16] Particularly the claim about their ability to be "ready to launch in 45 minutes," which was one of the "central planks" of the government's case.[17] [18] According to Holloway, the unreliability of some sources was not expressed by MI6 while preparing the case for war because of pressure from Downing Street.
While in Parliament, Holloway has taken a close interest in the War in Afghanistan and has visited, at his own expense, about a dozen times. In 2009 he wrote a paper for the Centre for Policy Studies titled "In Blood Stepp'd in too Far" which outlined the policies that he thought should be implemented during the War in Afghanistan: establishing an "honest government," ensuring that "tribal structures are supported, and "maintaining low levels of allied troops."[19]
In the wake of the Westminster parliamentary expenses scandal in 2009, he was ordered by Sir Thomas Legg, the head of a committee examining abuse of expenses by Members of Parliament, to repay £1,000 to the Exchequer which he had mistakenly claimed in 2007.[20] [21]
Holloway was returned as MP for Gravesham at the general election of 6 May 2010 with 22,956 votes (48.5% of the vote) and with an increased majority of 9,312.
In October 2010 he was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to David Lidington, Minister of State for Europe and NATO in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.[22] In 2011, Holloway undertook a fact-finding mission to Libya during the Overthrow of Muanmar Gaddafi.[23] In October 2011, he resigned from the Government when he was asked to vote against a non-binding Backbench Motion offering the British people a referendum on Europe.[24] When speaking about his decision he said: "I'm not now prepared to go back on my words to my constituents and I'm really staggered that loyal people like me have actually been put in this position," considering that he had "never voted against the party line."[25] For this decision he received 'Backbencher of the Year' in The Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards in 2011 as an MP who "in a choice between career and principle, chose principle."[26]
Holloway has also spent time in Iraq at the frontline with the Islamic State, and on his own has visited Mosul.[27] In October 2014 he was one of just six Conservative MPs to vote against air strikes targeting Islamic State in Iraq.[28] He argued the campaign hadn't "been thought through".[29] He actively abstained in the vote for air strikes in Syria in November 2015.[30]
Holloway was re-elected in 2015 general election with a majority of 8,370.
In a September 2015 Parliamentary speech Holloway described giving asylum to refugees from the Middle East as "bonkers", stating than many asylum seekers go on holiday in the countries they had fled from and used his barber as an example.[31] His barber, a Kurdish refugee, subsequently said that he was holidaying in Great Yarmouth that week, not Iraq.[32]
Holloway publicly supported the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.[33] He stated his reasons for being pro-Brexit as control of immigration, preservation of national sovereignty and maintaining strong defence ties with the United States.[34] Holloway's constituency of Gravesham had the highest turnout of leave voters in the United Kingdom, with 65.4% of constituents voting to leave.[35]
He was criticised by political rivals in June 2017 after he was seen campaigning with Janice Atkinson, then an independent MEP for South East England and former UKIP member, who had been suspended from her former party after a fraud enquiry was started relating to her expenses, and who had subsequently become vice-president of Marine Le Pen's far-right European Parliament grouping.[36]
He was re-elected in the 2017 general election with a majority of 9,347.
As Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on drones, Holloway provided an article to PoliticsHome and was interviewed about drones on BBC Radio 5 Live on 17 July 2018.[37]
In April 2018, Holloway said in Parliament that sleeping rough is "a lot more comfortable" than military exercises and that the majority of rough sleepers were "foreign nationals", in a debate on tackling street homelessness. After being criticised by rival politicians, Holloway defended his position during the debate by pointing to his personal experience of being in the army and having spent several months sleeping on the streets as part of the ITV documentary "No Fixed Abode" (1991).[38]
Holloway submitted a letter of no confidence to Prime Minister Theresa May over the Chequers plan for Brexit in November 2018.[39] He justified his letter of no confidence as "you can not have someone leading a mission who does not believe in the mission". He was one of the 28 so-called 'Brexit Spartans' who voted against her deal when it was presented for a third time in March 2019.[40]
In the 2019 general election he was re-elected with a majority 15,581, almost doubling his majority.
In 2020, Holloway was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary of State Robert Jenrick.[41]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Holloway set up 'Gravesham Community Support' to encourage people to become 'Super Neighbours', in order to pool resources, and to support and help their neighbours.[42]
In July 2021, Holloway was one of five Conservative MPs found by the Commons Select Committee on Standards to have breached the code of conduct by writing to the Lord Chief Justice to try to influence a judge not to release character statements they had written for former Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke, who had previously been found guilty of three counts of sexual assault and sentenced to two years in prison.
[43] On 22 July 2021, Holloway made a personal statement in the House of Commons apologising.[44]
In February 2022, Holloway visited Ukraine immediately following the Russian invasion of the country. The trip was criticised by Downing Street who had advised against travel to the country; Holloway said the trip would improve his ability to represent constituents and understand the conflict better.[45]
In March 2022, Holloway campaigned against the Lower Thames Crossing. He pointed out increased congestion in his constituency and argued against the economic case of the project, calling it a "White elephant".[46]
In April 2022, it was revealed that Holloway provided a character statement which was used as part of the defence case in the trial of former Conservative MP Imran Ahmad Khan, who was found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy.[47]
Holloway publicly backed Boris Johnson during Partygate and the subsequent government crisis. He criticised the BBC for blowing the issue "out of proportion" and making Boris Johnson look like "some sort of Hannibal Lecter".[48]
Holloway served as an Assistant Government Whip from July to September 2022 and Government Whip from September to October 2022 under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
In June 2023, he was one of six Conservative MPs to vote against censuring Boris Johnson following the Commons Privileges Committee investigation.[49]
Holloway was voted out as an MP and beaten by Lauren Sullivan, of Labour, in the July 2024 elections, after almost 20 years in the House of Commons.
During his 18 years in Parliament, Holloway served on various All-party parliamentary groups and Select committees. He currently sits on the Home Affairs Select Committee and the European Scrutiny Committee.[50] He has previously served on the Defence Select Committee, Public Administration Committee, Foreign Affairs Select Committee and Science and Technology Select Committee.
Holloway was a member of All-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) for Bahrain, Belize, Defence and Security Issues, Fit and Healthy Childhood, Foreign Affairs, Kazakhstan, Kurdistan in Turkey and Syria, Kyrgyzstan, London's Planning and Built Environment, Mongolia, Ukraine and Yoga in Society.