Johnny Mercer Keynote Speaker

Former Member of Parliament, Veterans’ Minister, Afghanistan Veteran and best-selling author, Johnny Mercer left the UK Government in 2024. He is an expert keynote speaker on the themes of leadership, campaigning and modern politics.

Starting off his professional life Johnny served 13 years in the UK Commandos, serving from the tactical to the strategic level throughout a career across the globe, including multiple combat operations at the height of the Afghanistan conflict.

Unwilling to accept the UK’s treatment of his generation of Military Veterans, Johnny stood as a Member of Parliament in 2015, despite having never voted before. Working on building-sites he self-funded a campaign that saw him win his seat having been given a less than 1% chance by the bookies.

His maiden speech to the House of Commons was acclaimed around the world and marked the start of his Parliamentary career. He served on both the Defence and Health Select Committees, chairing inquiries into historical prosecutions of Servicemen and Women and the misuse of prescription drugs, before campaigning for and subsequently creating the UK’s first Office for Veterans Affairs under Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2019.

Johnny was sacked from Government in April 2021 after refusing to pass legislation that did not protect Northern Ireland veterans from repeated and vexatious prosecutions from the Troubles. He has since campaigned for these Veterans both in London and Belfast. He was reappointed as Minister of State for Veteran’s Affairs, following the resignation of Boris Johnson and served in Cabinet until 2024.

In 2017, Johnny’s memoirs from his military career We Were Warriors went straight into the Sunday Times Bestseller list. “one of the best accounts of Afghanistan’s latest war. It is one of the great British accounts of close combat, matching Orwell in Catalonia and McDonald Fraser in Burma”