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> 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> 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. </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> UKIP chairman Paul Oakden has said he believes it could be years before his party wins another by-election - after it failed to make the breakthrough it had hoped for in Labour's heartlands.

Party leader Paul Nuttall had hoped to oust Labour in the Stoke Central by-election but fell short by 2,630 votes.

Mr Oakden said it was a "stepping stone" for the party but added that the defeat was "disappointing".

The party currently has one MP - former Conservative Douglas Carswell.

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "Something clearly didn't fire yesterday in as much as the fact that we didn't win.

"Politics is a long game. It took us 23-odd years to win a referendum to get Britain out of the European Union.

"It may take that long for us to get a seat in Westminster via a by-election. But if that's how long it takes then that's what we will keep doing, because that's what we are here for."

The party has previously had two wins in by-elections - in 2014 - but both of those had been Tory MPs who had quit their party and then stood in the same constituencies for UKIP at the subsequent by-elections.

One of those, Douglas Carswell, held on to his seat in Clacton, Essex, at the 2015 general election. However, Mark Reckless lost his Kent seat of Rochester and Strood back to the Conservatives.

UKIP had regarded Stoke as a promising opportunity to make a different kind of electoral breakthrough, taking the fight to Labour in constituencies that had voted overwhelmingly in favour of Brexit at last year's EU referendum.

The party pinned its hopes on its new leader becoming the party's first MP who had not previously held the same seat as a Conservative.

But his efforts were not enough to prevent Gareth Snell winning in the Staffordshire city and holding the seat for Labour.

Mr Oakden said UKIP had gone into Thursday's by-election with "high hopes and optimism" but had never assumed they were favourites to win the Stoke seat.

He told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme: "Sadly the four-week campaign that we had just wasn't enough to introduce ourselves and our new leader to the voters in Stoke-on-Trent Central.

"But actually we are very pleased coming out of yesterday - disappointed but pleased that we managed to improve on our vote result in 2015.

"We think that there is enough there to be very hopeful and optimistic about."

Mr Oakden described the 2% improvement on the 2015 campaign as a "step forward", and said Mr Nuttall had been "incredibly courageous" to put himself forward as a candidate despite being leader for just 12 weeks.

He said: "Our party came together in a way that it hasn't done for an awfully long time to rally around our leader and our candidate Paul Nuttall. There is an awful lot there to be hopeful for.

"This is a stepping stone, it is a disappointing night because we were hoping that we might win, but certainly it gives us some optimism for the future."

Mr Oakden admitted a false claim that Mr Nuttall had lost close friends in the Hillsborough football disaster had overshadowed the campaign, describing it as a "very unfortunate episode on a very sensitive issue".

But he said voters had barely mentioned it, saying: "There were other things that people wanted to talk about."

And he denied that Mr Nuttall had risked his reputation by losing the by-election and failing to take votes from Labour.

Mr Oakden said: "Paul Nuttall believes in leading from the front and that is exactly what he did by making himself the candidate in this election, and that is why it was a courageous thing to do and that is why our party are wholesome in their support of him as a leader this morning."

He added: "The membership want him there, they are looking forward to following in future elections." </s> Ukip MEP Steven Woolfe has been taken to hospital in Strasbourg after sustaining serious injuries in an altercation at a party meeting at the European Parliament.

The MEP for the North West England region, who celebrates his 49th birthday today, collapsed after being punched during a meeting of the Ukip party in Strasbourg.

Sources said he collapsed on a walkway bridge linking the European Parliament chamber and the parliament’s many meeting rooms shortly before midday.

Mr Woolfe, a qualified barrister, was elected to the European Parliament in 2014. He was widely seen as a possible successor to Diane James, the Ukip leader who resigned this week after 18 days in the role.

Mr Woolfe was famously prohibited from entering the Ukip leadership race following Nigel Farage’s decision to step down as leader in the wake of the British referendum in June, after he missed the application deadline by 17 minutes.

Earlier this week there were reports that Mr Woolfe was considering defecting to the Conservative Party, but he confirmed on Wednesday that, despite considering the issue, he would remain with Ukip.

“I have been enthused by the start to Theresa May’s premiership,” he said, noting that her support for grammar schools, pledges to tackle social mobility and commitment to a clean Brexit “prompted me, as it did many of my friends and colleagues, to wonder whether our future was within her new Conservative Party. “

“However, having watched the prime minister’s speech on Sunday, I came to the conclusion that only a strong Ukip can guarantee Brexit is delivered in full,” he said.

Sources in Brussels said Mr Farage was not involved in the incident in Strasbourg.

In a statement, the Ukip founder said: “I deeply regret that following an altercation that took place at a meeting of Ukip,MEPs this morning that Steven Woolfe subsequently collapsed and was taken to hospital. His condition is serious.”

Ukip topped the poll in the European Parliament elections in Britain in 2014, with 24 UK MEPs elected to the parliament.

Members of Ukip had gathered in Strasbourg this week for the regular plenary session of the European Parliament, which concludes today. </s> Paul Nuttall has resigned as leader of the UK Independence Party following the party’s poor performance at the UK General Election.

The party performed so badly it lost its election deposit in hundreds of seats.

Nuttall, speaking from Boston, said UKIP still had a key role as the “guard dogs of Brexit” following this election, but that it would not be with him at the helm.

Speaking earlier today, former leader Nigel Farage said he would consider returning but only if the party reformed to let the leader take executive decisions.

Currently, UKIP’s internal processes mean the party leader effectively answers to the National Executive Committee, elected by members, which meets once a month. </s> LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s eurosceptic United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) named a new leader on Saturday as it seeks to draw a line under recent turmoil.

UKIP was influential under former leader Nigel Farage in bringing about a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union in 2016, but has struggled to maintain its relevance since the country voted to leave the bloc.

UKIP said the appointment of Gerard Batten as leader was uncontested. Batten, a member of the European Parliament for London and the party’s former Brexit spokesman, had been serving as interim leader.

In February, party members voted to remove Henry Bolton as leader after less than five months in charge after a scandal about racist comments made by his lover. Bolton had been UKIP’s fourth leader in a year. </s> UKIP'S new leader Diane James has quit after just 18 days in charge of the party.

James, who succeeded former leader Nigel Farage at the party's conference last month, has thrown in the towel just over a fortnight after being elected.

It is not yet clear what prompted her sudden decision although sources say it may be to do with her husband's ill health although continued party infighting may have forced her hand.
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James was elected following a bitter row between departing leader Farage, prominent Leave backing millionaire Arron Banks, and the party's ruling body.

Steven Woolfe – the favourite of Farage and Banks – was barred from standing after apparently missing the deadline to enter the contest.
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James eventually beat Lisa Duffy by 46 per cent to 25 per cent to win the leadership ballot.

During the contest she promised to have a "laser focus" on the Brexit negotiations, but refused to set out any policies, insisting she did not want to make "policy on the hoof".

Senior members of the party have also been openly at war with their only MP, former Conservative Douglas Carswell.
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After a career in the healthcare sector, James first won election to Waverley Borough Council in Surrey as an independent in 2007 after becoming "disillusioned" with the Conservatives.

She switched to UKIP in 2011 and shot to prominence in 2013 when she fought the parliamentary by-election in Eastleigh, Hampshire, resulting from the downfall of Cabinet minister Chris Huhne, who was jailed for lying about a speeding offence.

She came close to taking the seat from the Liberal Democrats.

James, 56, was elected to the European Parliament as an MEP for South East England in 2014.

She had a relatively low profile during the Brexit referendum, in contrast to predecessor Farage, who said he was stepping down after the vote 'to get his life back'.
The UK Independence Party (UKIP)'s only MP, Douglas Carswell, quits the party to become an independent MP.