Douglas Carswell

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John Douglas Wilson Carswell (born 3 May 1971) is a British former Member of Parliament who became the first elected Member of Parliament for the UK Independence Party (UKIP), representing Clacton.

Carswell served as an independent from March 2017 to May 2017 (general election). He served as the MP for Harwich in 2005 and Clacton in 2010.

He changed his political allegiance to UKIP in August 2014 and declared his resignation as an MP. He called a by-election in which he stood and was returned as a UKIP MP. He argued he joined UKIP out of a desire to see "fundamental reform in British politics" and because "many of those at the top of the Conservative Party are clearly not on our side."

They aren't concerned about the change that Britain so desperately needs. "I jumped ship with the explicit intention of changing the image of UKIP and ensuring that it was an asset rather than a liability in the referendum campaign," Carswell revealed in 2016.

On March 25, 2017, he left the UK Independence Party to serve as an independent MP. He did not run in the 2017 general election.

Education and early life

Carswell is the son of two physicians. He lived in Uganda until his late teens. Wilson Carswell, a Scottish physician and Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, was one of a number of people concerned with the unfolding pandemic in Uganda. Dr Nicholas Garrigan's book The Last King of Scotland was inspired by his father's experiences in Uganda. Carswell attributed his libertarianism to Idi Amin's "arbitrary rule." Margaret Jane née Clark, a surgeon and ornithologist, died in 1935-2022.

Carswell was educated at two independent boarding schools for boys in Kenya: St Andrews School in Turi and Charterhouse in Godalming, Surrey, south of England, where he was taught by Edward Acton in 1993 and graduated with a second-class honours bachelor's degree in history. He later studied at King's College London, earning a master's degree in British imperial history.

Carswell served as the country's television production manager from 1997 to 1999, then for Invesco.

Personal life

Carswell and his partner, Clementine, have a daughter.

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Political career

Carswell contest Sedgefield, the constituency of Prime Minister Tony Blair, as the Conservative candidate in the 2001 general election. Blair's majority dropped by 7,430 votes in Carswell, a swing of 4.7 percent to the Conservatives compared to 1997, against a national swing of 1.8%. Carswell served in the Conservative Party's Policy Unit for a month before the 2005 general election, before being replaced by David Cameron.

Carswell was elected to the House of Commons in 2005, defeating Ivan Henderson, the sitting Labour Member of Parliament (MP), by 920 votes. In the debate on the Identity Cards Bill, he made his first appearance on June 28, 2005. He was a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel. He served on the Education Select Committee of the House of Commons and the Public Accounts Committee. In 2008, he took part in an Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme trip to Afghanistan, after which he requested that more funding be sent to British troops serving there.

Carswell tabled a bill in the House of Commons in December 2009 calling for a public referendum on Britain's membership in the European Union (EU). The Daily Telegraph named him a Briton of the Year 2009, and Spectator readers voted him their favored Parliamentarian of the Year in the same year. When it was discovered that the government was using them to stage Labour Party functions in marginal seats, he asked Gus O'Donnell to suspend Cabinet meetings held outside London in February 2010.

Carswell's majority in the new constituency of Clacton, which was established from Harwich at the 2010 general election, grew his majority over Henderson to 12,068 votes. In the 2010 general election, UKIP decided not to field a candidate against Carswell. Rather, the party ran in favor of his re-election in light of his steadfast anti-EU positions.

Carswell revealed last week that he planned to request a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon over the need to resolve an accountability of apportionment in the European Parliament by re-ratifying the treaty.

Carswell also pushed for political reform, which included the right for constituents to recall MPs. The Recall of MPs Act 2015 became statute in the United Kingdom.

Carswell defected from the Conservative Party to UKIP on August 28, 2014. Despite not being obligated to do so, he resigned his seat as an MP, triggering a by-election. Carswell had accepted a letter from Conservative supporter Giles Watling to a local newspaper describing UKIP as a "one policy party" and saying "a vote for Ukip will be a vote for Labour" less than a month before switching sides. Later, he declared that he had been "decidedly cool to the letter's sentiments."

Following Carswell's resignation, Roger Lord, the UKIP's nominated candidate for the 2015 general election, declared that he still wanted to vote, but the UKIP National Executive Committee decided against Carswell. Carswell led by two early opinion polls. He gained a large number of 12,404 votes over his nearest rival on October 9, 2014, despite being unsuccessful in the by-election.

Carswell later compared his willingness to transfer his party to the electorate to that of the eleven anti-Brexit MPs who joined The Independent Group, none of whom held by-elections when switching parties. "I did not bother to me not to have a by election when I switched parties," he said. What was the point if my own people weren't in favour of change?"

Carswell gained the seat of Clacton with a majority of 3,437, down from a majority of 12,404 in the 2014 by-election. Carswell gained the only seat in the UKIP general election.

During the EU referendum in June 2016, Carswell was a Eurosceptic and supported Vote Leave, advocating leaving the EU.

Carswell left UKIP to become an independent MP for Clacton in March 2017, leaving the UKIP without a single MP in Parliament. "Now we can be certain that [Brexit] is going to happen," the party's leader said.

Carswell declared on April 20th, 2017 following Prime Minister Theresa May's announcement two days earlier that a snap UK general election would be held, not a candidate in the June election.

On several occasions, he demanded that Farage step down as the party leader; on other occasions, he had a strong sense of "animosity" and "tension." Farage termed Carswell "irrelevant" in reaction to their support for competing competing campaigns to abandon the European Union in the 2016 referendum. Farage said in reaction to Carswell's call for the resignation of the party's leader, that Carswell could "put up or shut down," adding that "either he's going to have to accept that [UKIP is united] or do something different." Carswell tweeted a "sunshades smiley emoji" after Farage's resignation as UKIP chief following the EU referendum, which some parts of the media described as depicting the "uneasy friendship" between the two men, according to Carswell later, "I tweet smiley faces all the time." Although Farage had "played a part" in the referendum, he added that the resignation was "a big opportunity" for the party. "We find someone inside our party who doesn't agree with what the party stands for, it's a very strange state of affairs" a week after Farage suggested that Carswell be kicked out of the party.

Carswell first named a £1 million apartment in London as his second home after being elected in 2005 and claiming over £21,000 for food, rent, and furniture. He started renting a house in Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex, which he named his second home, in 2007, and paid a deposit and furniture, including a £655 love seat from his spending (see Flipping Second home flipping). He incurred $32,000 in bills for the house between 2007 and 2009, saying, "I think this is entirely justified." Following an inquiry into all MP's's spending, he was ordered to pay £2,159 in bills.

Charles Moore, a Conservative Party analyst and columnist, honors Carswell's contribution to the formulation of a Great Repeal Bill, as well as the possibility of a "Contract With Britain" offered during the campaign, the "recall" of MPs who have dissatisfied their constituents, open primaries for the selection of parliamentary candidates, and plans for elected police commissioners. Moore's argument is that "the localism of the Carswell/Hannan "direct democracy" movement has now good Coalition orthodoxy, but Cameron's policy advisor, Steve Hilton, "enthusiastically lifted several portions of The Plan," Carswell and co-author Daniel Hannan's best-selling modernizer book, "Ashgar."

Carswell's beliefs were evident in speeches delivered by David Cameron in Milton Keynes in May 2009, even before the Coalition was established.

Carswell was correct to acknowledge that a fruitful Brexit campaign depended on its messages being shared with people other than Farage, according to author Stephen Bush, but Carswell has stated that "there is no electoral majority to be found in Britain for the libertarian brand of conservatism that Carswell endorses."

"The facts show that Carswell's ability to win his position owed more to his party's popularity to Clacton's voters than his personal influence," Bush said, adding that "the proof shows that he has kept his seat due to the party leaders' support."

Carswell, a UKIP MP, and Mark Reckless and Stephen Crowther founded UKIP Parliamentary Resource Unit Limited during his time as a member of the UKIP party.

Carswell said in June that the UK "could very easily get a better trade agreement than we have at the moment."

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