Mark Croucher

Mark Christopher Croucher (born 13 March 1966, Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S.), is a political consultant specialising in media relations associated with the UK Independence Party. He was formerly Head of Media (2009-2011) for the Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group in the European Parliament^[1], Director of Communications for the UK Independence Party (2001-2007), and was an elected member of the national council of the Chartered Institute of Journalists from 2002 until 2006. He remains a member of the CIoJ.

He was in charge of media strategy during the UK Independence Party's successful 2004 European Election campaign^[2], when the party gained 16.8% of the national vote and returned 12 MEPs, beating the Liberal Democrats into 4th place. In the UK Independence Party's 2005 General Election campaign, he was again responsible for media strategy: realising UKIP's ability to garner media coverage in a domestic election was small, he opted instead for controversial sponsorship deals^[3] and other low cost, high impact strategies. Ultimately, while UKIP increased its share of the vote, the campaign was always likely to struggle for media attention in a first past the post contest dominated by the three main parties.

A controversial figure within the party, he was responsible for seeing off infiltration attempts by the British National Party, and was responsible for the removal of several BNP personnel who had managed to join UKIP ^[4].

In December 2010, he won a long standing legal battle with the BNP over unauthorised use of copyrighted images on their website ^[5], with Welshpool County Court awarding judgement in his favour against Nicholas John Griffin and the British National Party

He was a parliamentary candidate for the UK Independence Party in the Dartford (UK Parliament constituency) constituency in 2001 and 2005, coming fourth both times with 989 votes (2.2%) and 1407 votes (3.01%) respectively.^[6]

He is a former Merchant Navy radio officer ^[7], freelance journalist and pub landlord.

References

1. ^ http://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b5106.full/reply#bmj_el_228583
2. ^ http://www.prweek.com/news/224970/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH
3. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/england/4423931.stm
4. ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1544527/Revealed-Ukip-official-gave-money-to-the-BNP.html
5. ^ http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/05/12/bnp-gets-writ-in-pic-row-115875-21351702/
6. ^ http://politics.guardian.co.uk/person/0,,-7105,00.html
7. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2002/sep/05/guardianletters4

Persondata
Name	Croucher, Mark
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	13 March 1966
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death