North had "a brief career in the Royal Air Force" before becoming a local government officer, and then for two decades ran his own consultancy business. A 1994 contribution to the Institute of Economic Affairs's journal "Economic Affairs" described him as "an independent food safety adviser". "He then moved into trade politics and thence to the European Parliament as research director for the group of European Democracies and Diversities", a grouping of eurosceptic political groups which existed from 1999 to 2004, in which the UK Independence Party (UKIP) participated. At the European Parliament in Strasbourg, North shared an office with UKIP's leader Nigel Farage.