Douglas Carswell quits UKIP

[90sWereBetter]

Douglas Carswell quitting UKIP

UKIP's Douglas Carswell is quitting the party to become an independent MP for Clacton and says he is doing so "amicably".

Mr Carswell defected from the Conservatives to join UKIP in 2014.
He said he joined the party because he wanted the UK to leave the EU and now "that is going to happen, I have decided that I will be leaving UKIP".
Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage had demanded Mr Carswell quit, accusing him of "actively working against UKIP".

Party donor Arron Banks had suggested he could stand against Mr Carswell at the next election, amid a long-running feud over UKIP's future direction and strategy.

UKIP has not formally responded to Mr Carswell's announcement.
But on Twitter, Mr Banks posted a smiley face emoji and a green tick.

Writing on his website, Mr Carswell, the party's only MP, said: "I will leave UKIP amicably, cheerfully and in the knowledge that we won."

He added: "I will not be switching parties, nor crossing the floor to the Conservatives, so do not need to call a by election, as I did when switching from the Conservatives to UKIP. I will simply be the Member of Parliament for Clacton, sitting as an independent."

Mr Carswell said: "I will be putting all of my effort into tackling some of the local problems affecting the NHS in our part of Essex... Local comes first."

Mr Carswell, 45, first entered the Commons in 2005 as MP for Harwich, defeating Labour's candidate by just 920 votes. By 2010 he defeated the same opponent by 12,000 votes - although boundary changes had seen the seat renamed Clacton.

He took the seat with a 3,437 majority at the general election in 2015.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39393213

It was bound to happen.

 

[bramling]

It was bound to happen.

In my view it's a bit like people who have a habit of changing jobs following disagreements with their employer. Once or twice suggests it may have been the employer at fault, but when someone does it on a regular basis it suggests the individual may be the problem. Having said that, Mr Carswell does seem popular locally.

 

[meridian2]

In my view it's a bit like people who have a habit of changing jobs following disagreements with their employer. Once or twice suggests it may have been the employer at fault, but when someone does it on a regular basis it suggests the individual may be the problem. Having said that, Mr Carswell does seem popular locally.

Churchill and Powell were party changers. Both were opportunists or conviction politicians, depending on your POV.

 

[Abpj17]

In my view it's a bit like people who have a habit of changing jobs following disagreements with their employer. Once or twice suggests it may have been the employer at fault, but when someone does it on a regular basis it suggests the individual may be the problem. Having said that, Mr Carswell does seem popular locally.

But when the employer is UKIP with all the evidence of dysfunctionality played out through the media...

 

[thejuggler]

Jumped before being pushed. Banks and Farage are about to launch ukip mk2.

 

[Howardh]

Having said that, Mr Carswell does seem popular locally.

If he's that popular he won't mind resigning as an MP and re-standing in his seat again!

 

[me123]

And the next election will spell the end of his political career.

UKIP is going to die, thankfully rather quickly by the looks of it. They've lost their raison d'être (I'm using French specifically to wind them up here ) and have completely failed to reinvent themselves. I doubt that even a revival would work - I wonder how many UKIP supporters will actually subscribe to Farage's political ideology beyond Europe? He sits quite far to the political right, something that's been somewhat masked by his focus on Europe. Without Europe, he has to stand on his policies alone, and the UKIP manifestos have been pretty underwhelming to be honest.

 

[Qwerty133]

And the next election will spell the end of his political career.

UKIP is going to die, thankfully rather quickly by the looks of it. They've lost their raison d'être (I'm using French specifically to wind them up here ) and have completely failed to reinvent themselves. I doubt that even a revival would work - I wonder how many UKIP supporters will actually subscribe to Farage's political ideology beyond Europe? He sits quite far to the political right, something that's been somewhat masked by his focus on Europe. Without Europe, he has to stand on his policies alone, and the UKIP manifestos have been pretty underwhelming to be honest.

While it wouldn't surprise me if the UKIP vote collapsed at the next general election, as long as the country has left the EU, I don't think Carswell will lose his seat- on a local level he seems to enjoy strong support and as an independent MP he may have more opportunities to do what is directly beneficial for his constituents rather than party politics.

 

[Howardh]

While it wouldn't surprise me if the UKIP vote collapsed at the next general election, as long as the country has left the EU, I don't think Carswell will lose his seat- on a local level he seems to enjoy strong support and as an independent MP he may have more opportunities to do what is directly beneficial for his constituents rather than party politics.

Could be an ideal opportunity for May to fix a vote of no confidence and go to the country in May on a "do you really want Brexit?" ticket. UKIP - joke of a party. How they got this far beggars belief, and Labour are nowhere to be seen. If May went on a "Let's Stop Brexit" campaign, where's the opposition to it? Who could Brexiters vote for instead?

You now have a party/government who can do what they want - they can go ahead with the hardest of hard Brexits, pile on the taxes, and they'll get voted in, or they can stop Brexit and still get voted in. Is that what "taking back control" is - an one-party state

 

[Groningen]

In my view UKIP has only room untill it leaves the EU. Than Farage give all attention to saving Donald Trump career. Maybe he can play golf. Is there anything other to leave. I can only think of NATO. With the visit of Mrs. Le Pen to Vladimir Putin it will not surprise me. All 3 are anti EU.

 

[me123]

In my view UKIP has only room untill it leaves the EU. Than Farage give all attention to saving Donald Trump career. Maybe he can play golf. Is there anything other to leave. I can only think of NATO. With the visit of Mrs. Le Pen to Vladimir Putin it will not surprise me. All 3 are anti EU.

He might want us to leave this planet? He certainly seems to have.

 

[Howardh]

In my view UKIP has only room untill it leaves the EU. Than Farage give all attention to saving Donald Trump career. Maybe he can play golf. Is there anything other to leave. I can only think of NATO. With the visit of Mrs. Le Pen to Vladimir Putin it will not surprise me. All 3 are anti EU.

Perhaps he's filling in Trumpton on all the things they can leave? Those horrible Canadians keep sneaking into the USA claiming their fresh air, maybe another wall?? And some of them don't even speaka de Inglish.

On a less serious note, wonder how many states would themselves like to leave the US and go it alone?

 

[Busaholic]

Carswell has been used and abused by UKIP (more fool him). His seduction by Farage and Banks was meant to start a mini-avalanche of anti-European Tory backbenchers going over to UKIP, but all they got was Mark Reckless: Carswell's principled decision to trigger a by-election probably put some of the other potential refugees off, in the knowledge that in many cases they were only there because of their Tory rosette and not because they were genuinely admired by their electorate, as Carswell was. People like Bill Cash and Jacob Rees-Mogg were both too canny and too Conservative in background to ever go over, so all they'd have ever got were more like Reckless (remember him? - few do). I see no reason why Carswell should stand down - if I was him, I'd say something like 'I'll seek re-election if George Osborne does the same' and that'd shut up the Tory benches!

 

[Barn]

In completely unrelated and entirely coincidental news, Carswell's book is out on Monday.

 

[Busaholic]

In completely unrelated and entirely coincidental news, Carswell's book is out on Monday.

6th April, actually, according to my wholesaler, which might just about mean his abdication gets mentioned so long as the (small) publisher was tipped off a few days ago. The initial print run will doubtless be small anyway!

 

[Groningen]

Nothing known about the book of course. Will it be a reckoning with the UKIP. Than that departure from the UKIP was known to him for many months.

 

[Barn]

6th April, actually, according to my wholesaler, which might just about mean his abdication gets mentioned so long as the (small) publisher was tipped off a few days ago. The initial print run will doubtless be small anyway!

Amazon will ship you a copy tomorrow if you can't wait.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Nothing known about the book of course. Will it be a reckoning with the UKIP. Than that departure from the UKIP was known to him for many months.

The preview is already available on Amazon.

Glancing through it, there are a number of statements about Farage and UKIP that aren't entirely complimentary, so might not have gone down well within UKIP. That makes me suspect that perhaps Carswell was already planning to leave UKIP before the full book was published.

UKIP, for whom I’ve stood for election twice, was seen by many as a platform for its then leader, Nigel Farage.

Elsewhere he refers to Nigel Farage's comment a few years ago about immigrants clogging up the M4 as 'shock and awful'.

 

[Busaholic]

Amazon will ship you a copy tomorrow if you can't wait.

Oh, I can wait a long, long time! It'll be in the Works for a fiver by summer, and I still won't bite.

 

[Casey Jones125]

If he's that popular he won't mind resigning as an MP and re-standing in his seat again!

Spot on!

 

[Casey Jones125]

In my view UKIP has only room untill it leaves the EU. Than Farage give all attention to saving Donald Trump career. Maybe he can play golf. Is there anything other to leave. I can only think of NATO. With the visit of Mrs. Le Pen to Vladimir Putin it will not surprise me. All 3 are anti EU.

Thank goodness.