Revd. George Hargreaves
Leader of the Christian Party
Revd George Hargreaves is a minister of over 16 years standing, and leader of The Christian Party. Revd Hargreaves came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and saviour at the age of 14. However, during his late teens and twenties he fell away from the Lord. He spent 15 years working in the music industry where he gained success as a songwriter and record producer. Among others, he wrote and produced the single “So Macho” for Sinitta and thereby gave X Factor’s Simon Cowell his first pop idol. Having tasted the futility of “life in the fast lane”, like the prodigal son, he returned to the Lord.
He studied Christian Ministry at the International Bible Institute of London (Kensington Temple) where he earned a Diploma in Christian Ministry (with Distinction). He also studied Theology at King’s College (London University) where he gained a Bachelor’s degree. He went on to gain a Post-graduate Diploma in Theology and a Master’s degree in Anthropology from Oxford University, where he won the first studentship awarded by the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture. As a result of the studentship award he lectured at Oxford on the subject of ‘Black Majority Churches in Britain’. He has recently spent a year researching Christian voting habits at St Andrews University at the Centre for the Study of Religion and Politics, within the Divinity Faculty. Revd Hargreaves also studied Election Law at Essex University.
Revd Hargreaves entered politics when he stood for Parliament as a candidate for Sir James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party in 1997, in the east London constituency of Walthamstow. When the Referendum Party disbanded Revd Hargreaves briefly joined the Liberal Democrat Party, but found its secular humanist philosophy at odds with his faith. From 2002 to 2004, he was a member of the Christian Peoples Alliance, where he became the party’s Campaigns Officer. In April 2004 Revd Hargreaves launched Operation Christian Vote (now known as The Christian Party). Operation Christian Vote coordinated European Union election campaigns in both Scotland and Wales and achieved 12% of the vote in the Western Isles parliamentary constituency. In the 2005 General Election Revd Hargreaves gained 7.8% of the vote in the Outer Hebridean constituency of the Western Isles.
Although released from pastoral studies in order to pursue his studies and political activities, Revd Hargreaves remains a trustee of Hephzibah Christian Centre in Hackney (London) and Poplar Pentecostal Church. He is also the founder of the East London Christian Choir School. Until September 2005 he was the Faith Communities Project Manager for the London Borough of Waltham Forest, and Local Strategic Partnership Faith Representative for the London Borough of Hackney. He also sits on a number of community panels and boards as a representative of the Christian community in London; most notably he is the former Chair of the Metropolitan Police Service’s Stop and Search Consultative Committee, and currently sits on the steering group for the Metropolitan Police Service’s All Faith Safer Neighbourhoods Forum.
Revd Hargreaves has been a leading campaigner against the Incitement to Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, and the Assisted Suicide Bill and was one of the organisers of the anti- religious hatred bill prayer and praise rallies outside Parliament and in Hyde Park, and the Anti-Euthanasia rally outside Parliament, which was attending by hundreds of Christians including the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Revd Hargreaves is married to Revd Maxine Hargreaves, and has two adult sons Nicky and Marlon. Revd Hargreaves lives in Ilford, Essex.