Julia Gasper

Julia Gasper is an English independent academic specialising in early modern literature, and a right-wing political activist affiliated with the English Democrats. She formerly belonged to the UK Independence Party (UKIP). A vociferous critic of LGBT rights, she has generated controversy with comments widely deemed homophobic and transphobic.

In 1987, Gasper obtained a D.Phil. in English Literature from the University of Oxford after studying at Somerville College. She converted her D.Phil. thesis – a study of the role of Protestantism in the work of Thomas Dekker – into her first book; published in 1990, it received a mixed critical reception. She has since published two further books on eighteenth-century European history, on Theodore of Corsica and the Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens, respectively.

Involved in local politics within the Oxford area, she has been a parish councillor for Risinghurst and Sandhills. In 2012 Gasper was selected as UKIP's Parliamentary candidate for Oxford East. She was scrutinised for her anti-LGBT blog posts by LGBT-themed news service PinkNews. When the Sunday Mirror exposed further anti-LGBT comments that she had made on a UKIP members forum, she was denounced by party leader Nigel Farage and stepped down from her position. Changing her allegiance to the English Democrats, she unsuccessfully stood for them in the 2014 European Parliament election and for Oxford City Council in a local by-election.