MP for Clacton announces he is to become independent MP, having previously defected to Ukip from the Conservatives

Ukip’s only member of parliament, Douglas Carswell, has quit the party to become an independent MP, prompting a backlash from within Ukip and among its supporters.



Carswell, who defected from the Conservative party to Ukip in August 2014, said he was leaving “amicably, cheerfully and in the knowledge that we won”.

He said he would not be standing down before the next general election, and claimed there was no need for a byelection because he was not joining another party. Ukip, he added, had achieved its founding aims with the vote to leave the EU. “After 24 years, we have done it. Brexit is in good hands,” he said.

Shortly after the announcement on Saturday, the Ukip leader, Paul Nuttall, said the party had not “benefited financially or organisationally from having Douglas in Westminster”.

“With this in mind, his departure will make no difference to my ability or focus on delivering the reforms I promised when elected as leader,” he said.

In a post on his website and an email to his constituents, Carswell said: “It has been an extraordinary achievement. Ukip, my party, which was founded in 1993 in order to get Britain out of the European Union, has now achieved what we were established to do.

“Like many of you, I switched to Ukip because I desperately wanted us to leave the EU. Now we can be certain that that is going to happen, I have decided that I will be leaving Ukip.

“I will not be switching parties, nor crossing the floor to the Conservatives, so do not need to call a byelection, as I did when switching from the Conservatives to Ukip. I will simply be the member of parliament for Clacton, sitting as an independent.”

Carswell said Ukip had not won many seats in parliament, but that “in a way, we are the most successful political party in Britain ever”.



In a sign of the deep divisions within the party, however, Carswell immediately faced calls from the Ukip donor Arron Banks to trigger a byelection so the businessman could stand against him.

Andy Wigmore, a spokesman for Banks, said: “The net has been closing in. There is a Ukip national executive committee meeting on Monday and he [Carswell] knew he was for the chop, so jumped. He should call a byelection and Arron will stand against him.”

Responding to Carswell’s resignation on Twitter, Banks tweeted a smiley face emoji and a green tick.

Carswell was re-elected in Clacton at the 2015 general election with a majority of 3,437, beating the Tories into second place. It was a more slender majority than the 12,404 he achieved in the 2014 byelection, sparked by his defection to Ukip.



The MP has been at the centre of a battle for control of Ukip since Nigel Farage departed as leader in July last year, shortly after the UK voted to leave the EU. His decision to leave comes just days after Farage accused him of preventing Ukip from becoming a radical anti-immigration party in the wake of the EU referendum.

“The time has now come to have a clean break,” Farage said. “To make sure we don’t have influences like Carswell taking us away from the key arguments like immigration. There have been some in Ukip who want to turn us into a mainstream political party with very bland messages and I would say Ukip is a radical party or it is nothing.”

Farage denied that his desire to see Carswell expelled from the party was connected to leaked emails that suggested the MP had blocked a move to grant Farage a peerage. Party sources insisted Carswell was not subject to any formal disciplinary procedures, and Nuttall, who was recently defeated in the Stoke Central byelection by Labour’s Gareth Snell, had no prerogative power to expel him, even if he should wish to do so.

Carswell met the Ukip chairman, Paul Oakden, earlier this month, saying afterwards that the meeting was amicable and he intended to continue to sit as a Ukip MP. He played down reports that he was on the verge of returning to the Conservative party, telling the Guardian: “I’m Ukip 100%”.

Banks, however, a close Farage ally, announced that he intended to stand against Carswell in Clacton at the next election.

A Ukip source said at the time that Oakden had been asked to meet Carswell to establish the facts behind the leaked email row, but the MP was not subject to formal disciplinary proceedings.



“The matter of whether a party member remains a member of the party is a matter for the NEC,” the source said. “Nigel said… he wanted to expel Douglas in 2015. But it was impossible to do, because the party leader does not have that power. Neither does Paul Nuttall. It is not in Paul’s gift, because if a party leader had that sort of power, the possibility of dictatorial control would be appalling.

“That’s why all parties have processes and systems to ensure fair play. There is no formal process to kick him out of the party or discipline him, it is a fact-finding exercise.”

Carswell’s departure has sparked fresh doubt over Ukip’s sustainability as Britain begins the process of leaving the EU. When asked about the party’s future, Farage has likened Ukip to “the turkeys that have voted for Christmas”.

“At the moment there is huge trust in Theresa May to deliver Brexit, but I think already we are beginning to see concessions being made, over fishing, the fact that she wants to stay in the European arrest warrant,” he said.

“My guess is that a year down the road, there will be a lot of people who are very frustrated with the Brexit process. So Ukip needs to bide its time and get its messages right.”</s>Party, directed by Aniruddha Khutwad, is one that playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar labels 'simplistic'. Pic/Mandar Tannu

A socialite's bash in 2017 Mumbai will wear a vibe that a party thrown in the 1975 Bombay will not have. The gossip of the moment will vary, the social etiquette will differ. But, will artists and playwrights in both assemblies not critique the government of the day over a drink?

Forty-seven-year-old theater director, an alumnus of the National School of Drama, Aniruddha Khutwad feels glitterati parties are the accurate barometers for sensing contemporary tensions. That's why he has revived the play Party (celebrated playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar's not-so-feted 1975 creation) which is currently doing the rounds in Pune and is set to take on a wider tour of Mumbai and other metros. Retaining Elkunchwar's real time progression of a felicitation set in the '70s, Khutwad focuses on the political baggage of 11 characters which have opinions about a colleague who doesn't appear on stage but is involved in a left-leaning armed social movement. The absent character troubled Khutwad. He thought what if a writer in today's Mumbai espouses a social cause, will that spell an end of his or her art practice?

Khutwad decided to explore the answer by staging the play in the original language, Marathi, without being impacted by past productions in Hindi, English and Bengali.



The English Party by Kolkata group Neev was staged in 2008 and directed by Udita Chakraborty. It integrated the armed clashes of Singur and Nandigram in the script

The very first Party was the Marathi production of director Amol Palekar in 1976, an Emergency year in India when private spaces witnessed hushed but acrimonious debates on state censorship. It was also "a slimmer version of a verbose play." Insiders claim that an upset Elkunchwar preferred not to come for the show after watching the rehearsal. The English Party was launched as late as 2008 by the Kolkata group Neev whose director Udita Chakraborty integrated the armed clashes of Singur and Nandigram in the script. Director Sohag Sen first directed the Bengali version (Ensemble group, 1990), inserting a dance sequence and a chess game; and then mounted a Hindi production with NSD students in 2014. Despite doing the play at different points, she recalls Party as "effectively showing how people are used (and thrown) in a circuit." Party's celluloid version (Govind Nihalani, 1984) featured thespian Vijaya Mehta (director of many Elkunchwar plays like Wada Chirebandi) as the hostess inviting the cognoscenti.

Khutwad has retained it as a period play, denoting the seventies through Sameer Dublay's music and living room-outer portico props. Undeterred by the multiple perspectives about Party, he owns up his choice of a realistic urban play. "Party pinpoints pretenses to sophistication that characterise the entertainment world. With the advent of social media, fake, hypocritical responses have become more evident. So often the online lives of well-known artists stand in sharp contrast with what they say in private."

Khutwad is an ever-travelling director who has conducted workshops at theatre institutes in Hyderabad, Bhopal, Goa, and Ladakh; he teaches at the NSD as well as the Film and Television Institute; he works closely with theatre groups from the North East. And he feels Party adds another dimension to the themes he has handled. His preference become even more puzzling when playwright Elkunchwar, now 77, says it is a creation of his angry young man days, (he said to this columnist he has "lost interest in Party") when he sat in judgment as an outsider (he hails from Nagpur and prefers it over Mumbai). The second volume of his collected English plays (Oxford, 2010), quotes Elkunchwar on why he distances himself from Party.

After Elkunchwar labels Party simplistic, playwright Champra Deshpande has devoted good enough time (in an extensive essay-like FB post) on his reservations about Party's inadequacy. Deshpande ridicules the awkward combination of three writers - the crass commercial, the young emerging, and the predictable set-in-his-ways. "On his way to Delhi to collect his award, the predictable writer's train takes an unscheduled stop in the jungle and that gives him a glimpse of India's s poverty, which makes him question his art in a party." Deshpande pokes fun at Party and then plays safe by stating that a weightier production may help in etching some existential dilemmas. Elkunchwar's answer to Deshpande makes the episode even funnier: "I wrote the play at the age of 32, with a limited understanding of the world. I wasn't wise enough then. Not that I have gained now," he asks younger theatre practitioners as to why they don't find Party time warped.

Kolkata-based Pradip Mitra, an actor in the English cast, who has fond memories of performing Party in London and around, justifies Khutwad's urge to redo the play. "The machinations in the arts may have taken new shapes and forms, but how different can the power play and antagonism be in successive years? The entertainment industry runs on the same seed elements."

Neera Adarkar, who played the vulnerable but intense unwed mother in Palekar's Party, admires Khutwad for his choice. "Indians have definitely moved on. Few would take the risk of light party chatter about artists' involvement in tribal rights' activism. Artists are wary of smartphones and other devices that can jeopardize their professional status. They think twice before airing political views. In such a super cautious environment, if a young director sticks his neck out to project inconvenient issues, the urge must be respected."

Another actress who essayed a key role in the 1976 production, Chitra Palekar, reread the play for giving her response to what Party signifies now.

"The playwright wanted to raise genuine issues, which I could relate to at that age and stage, but today's theatre goer cannot relate to his cardboard characters. Who speaks the manifesto-like language, like they do in Party, whether communists or capitalists?" While theatre persons aired their misgivings about Party, the play's first director Amol Palekar had a non-reaction. "I am not sure if I want to devote time to some Khutwad's directorial attempt. My quote will be a few lines in your column, whereas mine was the original Party staging after Mahesh read it out to me." That can be called a parting shot!

Sumedha Raikar-Mhatre is a culture columnist in search of the sub-text. You can reach her at sumedha.raikar@gmail.com</s>LONDON (AP) — The UK Independence Party is losing its only member of the British Parliament in a blow to the upstart anti-Europe party’s future.

Douglas Carswell said Saturday that he’s leaving UKIP and will serve in Parliament as an independent. He said his departure is amicable and won’t trigger a new election because he isn’t joining another party.

Carswell had recently clashed with the party’s most generous financial donor, Arron Banks, who is allied with former UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

Carswell said UKIP has achieved its goal of getting Britain out of the European Union, making the party successful even though it hasn’t fared well in parliamentary elections.

The party had campaigned fiercely for years to convince Britons to leave the EU. That goal was met in the June referendum.</s>The alliance -- Britain's first coalition since World War Two -- survived battered but intact in the run-up to this year's election. But the country now faces more complicated scenarios after May 7.

Just 100 days before the polls, Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives and Ed Miliband's Labour party are both stuck on 32-34 percent of the vote, opinion polls show, weakened by surging support for alternative parties such as the UK Independence Party, the Scottish National Party and the Greens.

With the two main parties unlikely to win a majority on their own, some investors are worrying an inconclusive election could be followed within months by another, leading to years of weak government as occurred after two elections in 1974.

"At the moment you have so many unknowns, it’s not implausible you end up with a minority government that is hard to sustain in a fractured political system," said Mike Amey, UK portfolio manager at PIMCO, the world's largest bond fund.

The pound has fallen against the dollar to around its lowest level since mid-2013, partly reflecting that international observers are unsure about which of several possible outcomes will follow the election.

If Cameron returns to Downing Street, he will come under pressure to honour his promise to hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, and possibly bring it forward.

Labour's leader Miliband does not want an EU vote, saying it would pose too much of a risk to the economy. But his proposed controls on utilities and banks, along with calls for higher pay, have worried business leaders.

Lawmakers on Labour's left may challenge Miliband's promises to maintain austere levels of public spending.

Some analysts say the most stable scenario might be another cross-party deal involving either the Conservatives or Labour with the centrist LibDems.

"The taboo has been broken and whatever the electorate thinks of coalitions, they don’t actually regard the prospect of another one as a complete nightmare," Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University in London, said.

While coalition governments are common in other European countries, they have been rare in Britain thanks to its electoral system which gives nothing to runners-up.

The normal order was broken in 2010 by disenchantment among voters with the two main parties as Britain struggled to cope with the effects of the financial crisis.

The pairing of the Conservatives and the LibDems brought together two parties with once very different views on spending, tax and EU membership. But its supporters say concessions by both sides kept Britain on a relatively stable path over the past five years as they brought down a huge budget deficit, albeit less quickly than planned.

Indeed, some pro-EU Conservatives now say privately they would prefer another deal with the LibDems - who also support EU membership - to a small Conservative majority that would leave the party beholden to the members of it determined to take Britain out of the bloc, politics professor Bale said.

"It’s kind of the love that dare not speak its name," he said.

But a two-party alliance may not be enough to secure power after the May election. With the main three parties unpopular with disenchanted voters, opinion polls suggest a Conservative-LibDem alliance would need support another party's support in order to rule.

When Conservative Chancellor George Osborne said last month he would let Northern Ireland’s devolved parliament set corporate tax rates, it was interpreted as an overture to regional lawmakers whose support could help the Conservatives form a government.

Another option for the Tories is an alliance with the anti-EU UK Independence Party, which has two MPs now but may win more in May. That would come at the cost of a promise to hold a referendum on EU membership sooner than the 2017 date so far mentioned by Cameron.

If Labour emerges from the election as the biggest party but short of a majority, it might turn to the left-wing Scottish National Party, possibly outside a formal coalition agreement.

The SNP has said it would never prop up a Conservative government and would only support Labour if Miliband toned down spending cuts and promised not to base a new generation of nuclear-armed submarines on the River Clyde.

The party is gunning for Labour's Scottish seats and if it wins them is very likely to make more powers for Scotland a prerequisite of support for any UK government alliance.

PIMCO's Amey said British politics was likely to revert to its traditional two-party system once voters' wages started to grow and the public felt more secure with traditional options.

But, he warned, "..that’s not to say that it is going to happen overnight. When we get to the 2020 election could quite easily be in the same situation."

While the worst-case scenario for many investors is a government so unstable that it collapses, requiring another election, an uncertain outlook is welcome news for others.

Bookmakers are hoping for record business on the election, given the sheer range of bets and possible outcomes.

"It's the political equivalent of the Grand National," said Graham Sharpe, a spokesman for gambling firm William Hill, referring to Britain's most famous horse race.

"Normally, you're just asking whether the Conservatives or Labour will win. This time, you have 11 or 12 potential outcomes."</s>55% of Scots voted against independence in the summer of 2014, but that was before anyone really took the prospect of Brexit seriously. Now that it’s a reality and the UK is on the cusp of triggering Article 50 on 29 March, this issue once again takes on a very urgent relevancy because some Scots are reconsidering whether or not they want to stick around for the ride. What’s interesting is that the majority of Scots voted to “Bremain”, not Brexit, so it’s definitely a valid point that many of them might not want to go along with the UK’s departure from the bloc.

This is where everything gets really messy, however, since the British government argues that Scotland already had their independence referendum almost three years ago and voted to remain in the UK, so there’s no reason to have a redo so soon after the fact. Prime Minister Theresa May understands that her country needs Scotland and its energy resources in order to help weather any potential short-term tumult from Brexit, yet the Scots don’t want to feel like they’re being used and getting an unfair deal from London during this unpredictable time. Some of them, particularly those associated with the ruling Scottish Nationalist Party, think that now is the perfect moment for them to leave the UK and join the EU, thereby fusing nationalism with Europhilia in a unique and somewhat contradictory combination.

Of course, while Brexit is the catalyst for all the recent talk and efforts to hold another Scottish independence referendum, there are also patriotic considerations as well. The Scots have a clearly defined sense of identity and strong nationalism, and their history before the unification is literally the stuff of legends. There are a lot of reasons why independence is attractive to many Scots, though at the same time and judging from the last referendum results, the majority of them still want to remain with the UK, albeit with broad self-governing privileges. If First Minister Sturgeon is successful in convincing Prime Minister May and her government of the need to hold another vote on the issue, however, then we’ll all see whether Brexit was the beginning not just the EU’s potential dissolution, but also the UK’s.

Steven Fielding, Professor of Political History and Director of the Centre for British Politics at the University of Nottingham and Sevi Rodriguez Mora, Professor of Economics at the University of Edinburgh joined us to discuss the future of the United Kingdom.

We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.com

Have you heard the news? Sign up to our Telegram channel and we'll keep you up to speed!</s>Britain's anti-European Union party has lost its only member of Parliament, four days ahead of the country's formal exit from the EU.

Douglas Carswell, the only MP in Britain's anti-immigration UK Independence Party, announced that he was leaving the party Saturday, writing in a blog post that he was departing "amicably, cheerfully and in the knowledge that we won."

Carswell said he was leaving the party feeling that Brexit was in "good hands" and that his work with the party was done, though this would not mark the end of his career as a lawmaker.

Carswell has long been at odds with the party's founder, Nigel Farage, who accused Carswell of being too soft on immigration.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of protesters marched Saturday in London against Brexit, Britain's formal departure from the European Union.

The "Unite for Europe" march held a moment of silence for the victims of Wednesday's attack on Parliament before marching on, carrying bright blue EU flags.

A few other anti-Brexit protests took place Saturday, including one in Edinburgh, Scotland, and one in Rome — outside of a meeting of EU nations commemorating the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome. Britain's Theresa May did not attend the Rome meeting.</s>More than a generation ago, brave Namibian men and women risked life and limb in an armed struggle against foreign oppressors who denied the basic rights of the majority. The white minorities then enjoyed unfettered rights and the black majority endured great hardship.

On March 21, 1990 there was jubilation throughout the country. The masses of town and countryside were celebrating the birth of Namibia’s nationhood, independence and freedom.

The reasons for celebration were countless. Namibia was celebrating the heroics of its military and diplomatic forces, who offered fierce resistance to foreign oppression.

 They were celebrating the bravery of those whose blood watered our freedom – the heroes and heroines who died fighting to liberate their motherland.

They were celebrating the formation of a new democratic government. They were celebrating national reconciliation which Sam Nujoma – sworn in as president that day – declared.

They were celebrating the beautiful African story of how a nation can move from segregation to integration.

Celebrating our independence should never be seen from a parochial perspective of its supposed pomp and fanfare. Spending moderately to celebrate the day we unshackled ourselves from the chains of oppression does not warrant the hullaballoo witnessed in the country in recent weeks.

Simply put, you cannot make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Independence Day is not a day for excessive spending, but it is neither a day to bow our heads in self-pity.

March 21 is historical, not only in Namibia, but Africa too.

 In 1963, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was formed with the objective of working towards the greater unity of the African continent, while at the same time ensuring that the remaining colonies on the African continent are assisted to achieve their freedom and independence.

Thus, the Pan-African dream gave birth to African liberation with the last country to attain independence from foreign rule in Africa being South Africa in 1994.

 How then can we possibly lock ourselves in our homes on the instigation of people who clearly have personal scores to settle and are on a mission to humiliate the leaders of our country?

True, we have to go beyond ‘flag independence’ and start with practical solutions to the problems facing our country, but this doesn’t mean scrapping Independence Day celebrations off our calendar.

If anything, it is in fact in difficult times like these that we need to celebrate in unity our nationhood, reflect on the journey, on our victories and sacrifces, and inspire ourselves to regain our stardom.

Every generation – and we have many in Namibia – has to devote time to understanding how things got to where they are.

Festivities are not the most important aspect of Independence Day, as seems to be the perception of those who called for the boycotting of this year’s event at Rundu in the Kavango East Region.

Young people nevertheless turned up in vast numbers, because they were hungry not for food but for the messages and guidance of their leaders.

This enthusiasm was evident when young people had to be ordered off the rooftops of houses near the Rundu Stadium, as they sought to capture a glimpse of the proceedings.</s>The UK Independence Party is losing its only member of the British Parliament in a blow to the upstart anti-Europe party's future.

Douglas Carswell said Saturday that he's leaving UKIP and will serve in Parliament as an independent. He said his departure won't trigger a new election because he isn't joining another party.

He said the party's main goal of winning Britain's exit from the European Union had been achieved now that Prime Minister Theresa May is set to trigger Article 50 on Wednesday to begin the negotiations.

UKIP had campaigned fiercely for more than two decades to convince Britons to leave the EU. That goal was met in a June referendum.

"By April 2019, Britain will no longer be a member of the EU," Carswell said. "After 24 years, we have done it. Brexit is in good hands."

Carswell, a former Conservative Party member, had recently clashed with UKIP's most generous financial donor, Arron Banks, who is allied with former UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

Farage and Carswell have also been in conflict in recent years. Farage recently left the party leadership and has spent time in the U.S. cultivating a friendship with President Donald Trump.

In his announcement, Carswell downplayed these disagreements: "I will leave UKIP amicably, cheerfully and in the knowledge that we won," he said.

Carswell's abrupt departure will cost the party more than 200,000 pounds ($250,000), which represents its share of public funding distributed among all parties with members in the House of Commons.

The party still has members of the European Parliament, including Farage.
The UK Independence Party (UKIP)'s only MP, Douglas Carswell, quits the party to become an independent MP.