AUTHOR AND POLITICAL ACTIVIST
LBGT+ and Other Stories...
Ed was the Founder of the Armed Forces Legal Challenge Group, established in 1994 to fight the discriminatory ban on lesbians and gay men serving in the British Armed Forces. The campaign was successful when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the ban was illegal in January 2000. He received several awards for this successful human rights campaign.
During the campaign, Ed was a frequent broadcaster and writer on the subject, for the BBC, ITV, Sunday Times, Independent, and many newspapers and magazines around the world.
His book, We Can't Even March Straight (Vintage), was published in 1995.
Ed wrote recently about the campaign to lift the LGBT miltary ban as a contributor to Fighting With Pride, published by Amazon in January 2020.
In the 1990s Ed worked extensively as a researcher and speech-writer for members of both Houses of Parliament.
After the 2016 EU Referendum, Ed became a campaigning voice for the outcome of the vote to be respected. He resigned from the Conservative Party in August 2019, and was subsequently selected as the Brexit Party candidate for the constituency of Dover.
He is the author of Brexit and the UK Television Industry (2017) and the Brexit Broadcasting Licensing Directory (2018).
Ed wrote and presented a range of programmes for BBC Radio 5 Live in the series Ed Hall Investigates winning a Sony Radio Award for News and Current Affairs in 1998. The BBC News website carries details of his expose of a secret world trade in genetically-modified pigs click here.
Other radio series written and presented by Ed Hall include The First 100 Days (of the Blair Government) for BBC Radio, and Encyclopaedia Historica for the BBC World Service.
In 1991 and 1992 Ed produced television programmes for Channel 4 Dispatches and Thames Television on drug smuggling at Heathrow Airport and British mercenaries fighting in the former Yugoslavia.
As a writer, Ed's work has appeared in a very diverse range of publications including the Independent, The Times, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, and the Evening Standard.
He is a regular commentator on broadcasting, business and technology and contributes occasionally to Conservative Home.