Douglas Carswell

His mother, Margaret Jane née Clark (1935-2022) was a doctor and ornithologist.

John Douglas Wilson Carswell (born 3 May 1971) is a British former politician who served as a Member of Parliament from 2005 to 2017, co-founded Vote Leave and currently serves as president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

His father, Wilson Carswell, a Scottish doctor and Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, diagnosed the first confirmed Ugandan cases of HIV/AIDS in the early 1980s, and was one of a number of people engaged in drawing attention to the unfolding pandemic.

His father's experiences in Uganda were among the inspirations for the character Dr Nicholas Garrigan in Giles Foden's novel The Last King of Scotland.

Carswell later attributed his libertarianism to his experiences of the "arbitrary rule" of Idi Amin.

Carswell was educated at two independent boarding schools for boys: St Andrews School in Turi in Kenya in East Africa, and Charterhouse in Godalming, Surrey, in southern England, followed by the University of East Anglia (UEA), where he was taught by Edward Acton, and graduated with an upper second-class honours bachelor's degree in history in 1993.

He then attended King's College London, receiving a master's degree in British imperial history.

Carswell worked as corporate development manager for television broadcasting in Italy from 1997 until 1999, and later for Invesco.

Blair's majority fell by 7,430 votes with Carswell effecting a swing of 4.7% to the Conservatives compared to 1997, against a national swing of 1.8%.

At the 2001 general election, Carswell contested Sedgefield, the constituency of Prime Minister Tony Blair, as the Conservative candidate.

As a member of the Conservative Party, Carswell was first elected as the MP for Harwich in 2005 and then for Clacton in 2010.

In the months before the 2005 general election, Carswell worked in the Conservative Party's Policy Unit, then run by David Cameron.

Carswell was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the constituency of Harwich, defeating Ivan Henderson, the sitting Labour Member of Parliament (MP), by 920 votes.

He made his maiden speech on 28 June 2005 in the debate on the Identity Cards Bill.

He was a member of Conservative Friends of Israel.

He served on the House of Commons' Education Select Committee and the Public Accounts Committee.

In 2008, he took part in an Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme trip to Afghanistan, after which he called for more resources to be allocated to British troops serving there.

In December 2009, Carswell tabled a Bill in the House of Commons calling for a public referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union (EU).

The Daily Telegraph nominated him a Briton of the Year 2009, and Spectator readers voted him their choice as Parliamentarian of the Year in the same year.

In February 2010, he asked Gus O'Donnell to suspend Cabinet meetings held outside London, when it was found that the government was using them to host Labour Party events in marginal seats.

In the new constituency of Clacton that was created from Harwich at the 2010 general election, Carswell increased his majority over Henderson to 12,068 votes.

UKIP decided not to field a candidate against Carswell in the 2010 general election.

Instead, the party actively campaigned in support of his re-election in view of his staunch anti-EU views.

In the first week of the new parliamentary session of the Conservative-led Government, Carswell revealed that he intended to force a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon, over the need to resolve an oversight of apportionment in the European Parliament by re-ratifying the treaty.

In August 2014, he changed his political allegiance to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and announced his resignation as an MP.

He stood in the subsequent by-election and was returned under his new affiliation, becoming the first elected MP for UKIP.

He stated that he was joining UKIP out of a desire to see "fundamental change in British politics" and because he believed "many of those at the top of the Conservative Party are simply not on our side. They aren't serious about the change that Britain so desperately needs."

On 28 August 2014, Carswell defected from the Conservatives to UKIP.

Although not required to do so, he resigned his seat as an MP, thus triggering a by-election.

Less than a month before switching parties, Carswell had approved 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".

He later said he had been "decidedly cool towards the sentiments of the letter."

Carswell also strongly advocated for electoral reform, including the right for constituents to be able to recall MPs. The Recall of MPs Act 2015 later became law.

Following Carswell's resignation, Roger Lord, UKIP's nominated candidate for the 2015 general election, declared that he still wanted to stand, although the UKIP National Executive Committee voted to select Carswell.

Two early opinion polls showed Carswell with a substantial lead.

In 2016, Carswell said that he had "jumped ship with the express goal of changing the image of UKIP and ensuring that it was an asset rather than a liability in the referendum campaign…to decontaminate the brand".

He left UKIP on 25 March 2017, to sit as an independent MP.

He did not stand at the 2017 general election.

In January 2021 he was appointed as president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

Carswell is the son of two physicians.

He lived in Uganda until his late teens.