A TORY Councillor, who describes himself as a “liberal immigrant,” and has been elected in our region after moving from Syria to the UK, has opened up about his life.

George Jabbour, now representing the Helmsley and Sinnington division in North Yorkshire, moved to the UK 18 years ago after being successful in securing a scholarship.

Speaking to The Northern Echo, he has revealed the more intricate details about his life and his unsuspecting journey into local Government in the region.

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He began studying finance at the Imperial College London where he proceeded to graduate as the top performer in his programme.

Mr Jabbour advanced into investment banking where he worked for Goldman Sachs and then soon started his own business advising “governments and public sector organisations on their investments.”

He said that in this role he was “able to uncover a number of financial scandals and wrongdoing in a number of countries.”

And in 2015 it was reported that Mr Jabbour was at the centre of a billion-dollar lawsuit between the Libyan government and one of the world’s largest investment banks as a “whistleblower.”

During this time, he became a British citizen, and decided that he wanted to give something back to the country by getting into politics after the UK had given him “so many wonderful and amazing opportunities.”

He later joined the Conservative party, despite calling himself a “liberal immigrant” where he campaigned in “unwinnable” seats across the country.

After completing his campaigning journey across the country, Mr Jabbour decided to settled down and added that he thinks “Yorkshire – Gods own County – is definitely one of the most beautiful places in the world.”

The Conservative councillor won over 1,000 votes during the election and managed to unexpectedly win a seat from his opposing independent councillor.

Mr Jabbour said he was “over the moon” with his election win and it was “such a huge honour to be successful” and be a “representative of this beautiful part of the world.”

On his aims for Helmsley and Sinnington, Mr Jabbour said: “I have been working during the campaign on a number of initiatives and projects, one of them I’m very pleased about which is public transport.

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“That came about very early on in the campaign as people have highlighted to me the lack of efficient and frequent public transport links in Helmsley and also the villages around it, as a big concern.”

He added: “Also I have other priorities, one of them is a greener North Yorkshire so trying to move towards a net zero council.

“Another is a cleaner North Yorkshire, making sure that we tackle fly-tipping and dog fouling.

“Another is safer roads, because speeding is one of the key issues that we regularly see and residents complain about across all of North Yorkshire.

“And of course we need to transition into a unitary authority in the most efficient way, because that is a big change that is going to happen.”

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