Jonathan Fryer, Liberal Democrat politician, foreign correspondent and prolific author – obituary

Jonathan Fryer, who has died aged 70, was a journalist, broadcaster, author and academic specialising in world affairs; he chaired the London Liberal Democrats, and as a Quaker featured on Radio Four’s Thought for the Day.

Fryer fought five general elections and eight for the European Parliament, twice coming close to winning a seat at Strasbourg. His professional grounding was seven years in Brussels covering the EEC and Nato. He reported from 160 countries, and contributed to Radio Four’s From Our Own Correspondent.

After taking part in the BBC’s coverage of the first Gulf War, he focused on the Arab world, appeared regularly on Middle Eastern television, and wrote for The Economist, The Guardian and The Oldie.

Fryer’s books included portraits of Brussels and Soho, histories of Kuwait and Kurdistan, a Quaker profile (George Fox and the Children of the Light, 1991) and a childhood memoir, Eccles Cakes (2016).

A campaigner for gay rights who refused to visit the United States while it denied entry to people with HIV, Fryer also wrote Isherwood (1977) and André and Oscar: Gide, Wilde and the gay art of living (1997).

He lectured at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies and on cruise ships, taught at City University, and gave seminars for the British Council on democracy-building and the media in Egypt, Ethiopia and Uruguay.

Fryer had for 30 years lived in the East End, at Bow. He took a keen interest in local planning, balancing the need for affordable housing with preserving London’s heritage. For an activist, Fryer had the rare ability to calm those around him. This was evident in his tweet from hospital three weeks before his death: “Brain tumour. Incurable. Dying soon here or at St Joseph’s Hospice, Hackney, Goodbye everyone, and thank you. Jonathan.”

He was born Graham Leslie Morton in Manchester on June 5 1950. After his parents divorced, his mother had him adopted by a local business couple, taking the name Jonathan Harold Fryer.

Only in 2014 did Fryer discover he had two natural sisters – one living near his childhood home – as well as an adopted one. Reunited with his sisters Denise and Jill, he said: “It was particularly moving to finally see pictures of my mother.”

Leaving Manchester Grammar School in 1967, he travelled overland to Vietnam, where he reported on the war for the Manchester Evening News.

The experience led him to join the Religious Society of Friends on his return two years later, and in 1979 Fryer would co-found the Quaker Council for European Affairs, which established Quaker House in Brussels.

At St Edmund Hall, Oxford, he switched from Geography to Chinese with Japanese. Graduating in 1972, he joined Reuters, in London then in Brussels. Signing his first book contract (for The Great Wall of China, 1975) he went freelance, but kept Brussels as his base for seven years.

Fryer joined the Young Liberals after Jo Grimond came to his school, becoming vice-chairman of the North West Young Liberals and secretary of the Oxford University Liberal Club.

He was elected a Bromley councillor in 1986, but four years later moved to Bow. He fought general elections at Chelsea (1983), Orpington (1987), Leyton (1992), Poplar and Limehouse (2010), and Dagenham and Rainham in 2017.

For the European Parliament, he stood in London South East in 1979, 1984 and 1994, and for the London region in every election from 1999 to 2019. He came close to winning a seat in 2004, and in 2019, when London elected three Lib Dem MEPs, was fourth on the party’s list.

Fryer chaired the Liberal International British Group; served on the LibDems’ international relations committee and the council of the European Liberals and Democrats.

Jonathan Fryer, born June 5 1950, died April 16 2021