Crispin Jeremy Rupert Blunt (born 15 July 1960) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Reigate since 1997. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Prisons and Youth Justice within the Ministry of Justice from 2010 to 2012 and Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee from 2015 until 2017.
Blunt first entered the House of Commons at the 1997 general election, when he replaced the then MP Sir George Gardiner, who had been deselected by the Constituency Conservative Association Executive Council and joined the Referendum Party. In 2013, Blunt was deselected by the Constituency Executive Council, with speculation that this was due to his public announcement that he was gay. However, after a ballot of party members in Reigate, the decision was overturned by a margin of 5–1 and Blunt was reselected as the Conservative candidate for the 2015 general election.
On 1 May 2022, he announced he would be standing down at the next general election. In October 2023, he was arrested on suspicion of rape and possession of controlled substances, and released on conditional bail. He subsequently had the Conservative Party whip removed, continuing to sit as an independent MP.
Early life and career
Blunt was born in Germany, one of three sons of English parents Adrienne (née Richardson) and Major-General Peter Blunt (1923–2003). He was educated at Wellington College, and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where he won the Queen's Medal, gaining a regular commission, before reading politics at University College, Durham between 1981 and 1984, where he was elected president of the Durham Union Society in 1983 and graduated with a 2:1 degree. In 1991, he gained an MBA degree at the Cranfield School of Management.
Blunt was commissioned as an officer into the 13th/18th Royal Hussars (Queen Mary's Own) and served until 1990. During the 1980s, he was stationed in Cyprus, Germany, and Britain, serving as a Troop Leader, Regimental Operations Officer and Armoured Reconnaissance Squadron Commander. He resigned his commission as a captain in 1990.
Blunt contested his first Parliamentary seat at the 1992 general election, as the Conservative candidate in West Bromwich East. From 1991 to 1992, Blunt was a representative of the Forum of Private Business. In 1993, he was appointed a special adviser to Malcolm Rifkind, the Secretary of State for Defence, and worked in the same capacity when Rifkind became Foreign Secretary from 1995 to 1997.
Member of Parliament
At the 1997 general election, Blunt was elected to Parliament as Member for Reigate in Surrey, succeeding the long-serving strongly Eurosceptic MP Sir George Gardiner, who had been deselected by the local Conservative Party. Blunt was subsequently appointed to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee.
In July 1997, he was elected as Secretary of the Conservative Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Committee and the Conservative Middle East Council. In May 2000, he joined the House of Commons Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Select Committee and in July 2003 he was elected Chairman of the Conservative Middle East Council, a position he still occupies.
The new Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith appointed Blunt to the Opposition front bench as Shadow Minister for Northern Ireland in September 2001. In July 2002, he was appointed as deputy to Tim Yeo, Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. On 1 May 2003 he resigned his position on the front bench, saying that Duncan Smith was a "handicap" to the Conservatives. He decided to resign at that time in the expectation that the Conservative Party would make over 500 gains in the 2003 local government elections, but in the belief that these would be achieved in spite of, rather than because of, Duncan Smith's leadership. Blunt timed his resignation so that it became public after the polls closed but before the results were declared.
The following day he was unanimously reselected by his local party as their prospective parliamentary candidate, but in May 2003, he failed to persuade 25 of his fellow Conservative MPs to call for a vote of confidence. He accepted that no challenge for the party leadership would be immediately forthcoming and returned to the back benches. In November 2003, Michael Howard replaced Duncan Smith after a vote of no confidence.