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Famous By-elections: Douglas Carswell and Clacton 2014
26 Plays3 days ago
As part of our first series of “Famous By-Elections” our team interviews Douglas Carswell who contested the 2014 Clacton By-Election. The by-election was called when Carswell resigned his seat as a Conservative MP to become a UKIP MP.
Talking about the campaign, his decision to resign his seat causing a by-election and how it affected his electoral future are all part of the discussion in this fascinating interview.
Recommended
Transcript
Defection to UKIP: A Turning Point
00:00:08
Speaker
What compels an MP to leave the safety of the governing party and risk everything? Well, in 2014, Douglas Carswell did just that.
00:00:19
Speaker
As a sitting Conservative MP, he shocked Westminster by defecting to UKIP and triggering a by-election. Was it conviction? Was it frustration? Or a deeper belief that the system was broken?
Introduction to Observation Podcast
00:00:32
Speaker
Today, I'm joined by Douglas Carswell to explore one of the most dramatic political moments in recent British history. I'm your host, Jason McKenna. This is the Observation Podcast. But first of all, Douglas, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you doing?
00:00:47
Speaker
Thank you for having me. It's wonderful to be taking part in this. It's great to see you. And what's life like over Mississippi? Because that's where you are at the moment, isn't it?
Comparison of Economic Growth: Mississippi vs. UK & Germany
00:00:57
Speaker
It's wonderful. It's wonderful to be in a part of the world where the ideas that I believe in are taken seriously.
00:01:04
Speaker
Mississippi, supposedly the poorest state in America, is now the second fastest growing state in America. Its per capita GDP has overtaken that of the UK. And this year, Mississippi's economy in per capita GDP terms is going to overtake that of Germany.
00:01:20
Speaker
It's ah sometimes something I reflect on if only British conservatives had taken seriously some of the ideas that I articulated in the House of Commons. But they take these free market ideas very seriously here in America, particularly in Mississippi.
00:01:34
Speaker
And that's why we're doing so well. Well, let's talk about it then, because the reason why your defection was there was because of your conflict with the Conservative
Reasons for Joining UKIP and Critique of EU
00:01:43
Speaker
Party. So let's go back to summer 2014.
00:01:45
Speaker
twenty fourteen You were sitting Conservative MP, elected in 2010 and part of the governing party, but you decided to defect to UKIP. So I guess the first question that everybody wants to know is why join UKIP? What was the rationale at the time?
00:02:00
Speaker
Two things. I wanted Britain to leave the European Union. I was very clear about that when I first ran for election in 2001 and then 2005 when I got elected. i was very clear. I thought Britain should leave the European Union. I think the European Union is a disastrous way to organize the lives of tens of millions of Europeans. It causes ah stagnation. It causes all sorts of problems.
00:02:26
Speaker
I believe that Britain should leave. In fact, I believe that most European countries should leave the European Union. It's a dreadful organization. um So I wanted Britain to leave.
Frustrations with Conservative Party Mediocrity
00:02:35
Speaker
I also was slightly stunned um from 2005 to probably 2010, 11, at just the sheer mediocrity of the people who actually run our country and the sheer lack of seriousness.
00:02:52
Speaker
of them. And I felt the country needed fundamental change. And I, I hate to say it, but I think I saw coming a lot of the things that have since come to pass the sheer dysfunctionality of the British state and the sheer inability of the people we elect to run a bath, let alone a country, let alone control our borders or manage the banks properly.
00:03:15
Speaker
And so I, I felt that if I remained as part of uh, ah governing Conservative Party, um I would be culpable, I would be morally responsible for the lunacy happening all around me.
00:03:35
Speaker
And so I
Efforts and Opposition within Conservative Party
00:03:36
Speaker
thought, do you know what, I'm going to try and see if we can shake things up a bit. And so you've described there your your disenchantment with the Conservative Party leadership.
00:03:48
Speaker
Did you try and actually push your views within the party? Were they pushed back against? Oh, goodness, yes. Goodness, yes. I mean, obviously, on the issue of Britain's membership of the European Union, i i got a reputation as being constantly...
00:04:04
Speaker
trying to push for a referendum. um Amusingly, many of those who subsequently defined themselves as Eurosceptics after 2016, after Britain voted to leave the European Union, were some of the fiercest opponents um in ah my efforts and the efforts of others to secure a referendum.
Defense Spending and Welfare Reform Critique
00:04:24
Speaker
um But it wasn't just Brexit. um On things like defence procurement, I think that Britain, is a significant economic power and it requires a significant military capability. We live in a dangerous world and we need to be able to project force.
00:04:43
Speaker
You look at how the defence budget has been spent over the past 30 years and it's a, excuse my French, a shit show. If you don't change the way we spend our defence budget, you will eventually end up in a very precarious position. I would say we're pretty much there already.
00:04:59
Speaker
I tried repeatedly to get Conservatives. like you know I thought the one thing that Tory MPs understood was the need for a good system of defence. On the contrary,
00:05:10
Speaker
Again and again and again i came up against medium level Tory ministers with ah some say over defence procurement who weren't interested in change. I would endlessly talk about the need for welfare reform.
00:05:25
Speaker
I would endlessly talk about the need to rein in the worst excesses of fractional reserve banking in order to stop the kind of financial crisis that we indeed saw. I would endlessly talk about the need to not keep issuing index-linked government bonds.
00:05:42
Speaker
um And you know what, um Jason? Every time I launched one of these campaigns or wrote papers, and I produced a blizzard of policy papers at the time, every time I did it, I would be dismissed rather condescendingly by Conservative MPs and particularly by the Cameroon clique as being a maverick.
Vindication of Carswell's Views
00:06:02
Speaker
um Well... i I hate to say, but I think actually maybe those of us who saw things a little differently turned out to be vindicated. It was the establishment orthodoxy on Europe, on immigration, on taxation, on banking, on defence procurement that has been found extremely wanting.
00:06:24
Speaker
So, goodness, I tried. i tried repeatedly. um But, you know, ultimately you you need to go where you're appreciated. And if people, know, you can't ultimately reason with a certain kind of Tory stupidity.
00:06:40
Speaker
And I found myself trying to reason with a certain kind of tory stupidity And the most invidious kind of stupidity is not actually low IQ stupidity.
00:06:51
Speaker
It's Oxford PPE stupidity, the sort of Cameroonian conceit. um You know, I went in to see David Cameron on on several occasions on several of these issues.
Encounter with David Cameron & Dog Microchipping Debate
00:07:04
Speaker
And um he he always ah rhetorically won every argument. um He's one of those people who I think would have been a far more significant player in British public life if he had occasionally had the humility to listen and to lose an argument.
00:07:19
Speaker
and In terms of that, then, do you think that actually sometimes it was a little bit insulting to you as well? You were talking there almost as a lack of respect to differing ideas than just the the you know hegemonic ideas, the status quo.
00:07:34
Speaker
Oh, goodness, yes. I mean, i was repeatedly told and it was repeatedly implied and indeed often spelt out to me that if I continue to push these maverick ideas, um the idea that, you know, we should not keep raising taxation.
00:07:50
Speaker
um I remember at one point, I'll give you a small example. I got very vexed about the idea that we should introduce a law to make it compulsory to microchip one's dogs.
00:08:03
Speaker
I'm a free market libertarian, and i I went away and did some quite significant research, and I discovered that European countries that didn't require compulsory microchipping of dogs had higher rates of microchipping than those who let people decide for themselves.
00:08:19
Speaker
um So i I went and presented this to various officials and ministers and suggested that actually if you wanted pet owners to microchip their dogs, the best thing to do was to leave them to their own devices and give them responsibility. And if people were given responsibility, they would act responsibly.
00:08:38
Speaker
I was, of course, ignored and I was told that I didn't know what I was talking about. And many a smirk was had by ministers and fellow MPs and many people regarded me rather dismissively as a sort of a bit of a crank on the issue.
Groupthink in Politics: A Critical Issue
00:08:55
Speaker
Well, let me tell you, during COVID-19, I remember thinking the argument about allowing people to make their own choices, the idea that you should allow people to take responsibility, the idea that you might actually take what you might call the Swedish approach to lockdown proved far more effective. So I think maybe the the The awkwardness and the sort of maverick quality I had might have actually stood the government in quite good stead during COVID lockdowns.
00:09:31
Speaker
um But it's this groupthink, this unwillingness to listen to the outsider, this willingness to smirk and dismiss the outsider because they're not part of the groupthink.
00:09:42
Speaker
That has been the undoing of... not just the British Conservative Party, I think been the undoing of both establishment parties.
Disenchantment Leading to UKIP Decision
00:09:50
Speaker
They're fundamentally dominated by fairly low-grade midwits who are good at getting PPE degrees from Oxbridge, but utterly, utterly useless at looking at things differently and thinking critically and assessing new situations according to timeless principles.
00:10:12
Speaker
That is why on all the big issues of the day, Bank bailouts, COVID lockdowns, mass immigration. Again and again and again, the group think in Westminster has not just been identical on both sides of the aisle, it has been catastrophically wrong.
00:10:28
Speaker
um that There is no room within our political system for independent thinkers, which is why the entire edifice of the political system is now in danger of going the way of the Bourbons.
00:10:43
Speaker
and And just kind of maybe to look at a particular moment, was there a standout that said to you, i have to leave the Conservative Party? Or was it a mix of the fact that you were disenchanted with the Conservative Party and you're also getting some positive discussions with UKIP?
00:11:04
Speaker
and There was no one moment. It was a gradual process. um I remember I happened to be at a ah conference in in in Europe with Ed Llewellyn. David Cameron's a chief of staff and now, unsurprisingly, a senior official in the British Foreign Office.
00:11:22
Speaker
um no no No shock there. um And I remember just slightly thinking that I was being... condescended to when we discussed the Europe question. And I just slightly remember thinking, okay well, i'm I'm going to push for a Brexit referendum.
00:11:41
Speaker
And this this was dismissed somewhat gleefully. And I remember thinking, I think you may learn the hard way that you need me more than I need you. um That was a
UKIP Announcement and By-Election Strategy
00:11:53
Speaker
significant moment. that the the The arrogance of the Cameroonians was was significant.
00:11:58
Speaker
um there was There was no one one incident of Cameroonian condescension. It was a steady weekly, if not daily, drip. But that that had quite ah quite an impact.
00:12:10
Speaker
I was very hesitant, though, because, you know, um i wasn't born a rebel by instinct. I... i you know had a career stretching ahead of me in one of the safest Conservative seats in the country.
00:12:25
Speaker
If I played my cards right, I could be there for 30 years. If I played my cards right, I could probably get into the Cabinet. um i I was hesitant um to give that all up and to join a party that had not won a single seat in the House of Commons.
00:12:44
Speaker
um So, you know, it it it took a while. And so, you know, looking at after what you described there as maybe a little bit of a disrespect from the Conservative Party, what was the reaction when you told senior Tory figures that you were going to leave? Was was there suddenly a scramble to be able to keep you on board? Or was there again a continue of disrespect?
00:13:11
Speaker
No, I mean, I choreographed it so that I would announce to... my constituents at a press conference um in London with Nigel Farage that I was leaving, i had spoken to a handful of very, very close comrades in arms, people who I had known for years, people who had actually suggested in the first place that I might join the Conservative Party if I wanted Britain to leave the European Union.
00:13:36
Speaker
um And I had a ah conversations with them at every stage of the way. But the broader Tory party, I let them find out um at the press conference. um And, you know, to be fair to them, they took it in in good grace. I remember, um I think, Nicholas Soames said,
00:13:59
Speaker
you know, after I quit and was re-elected in the by-election that followed, was gracious towards me and people who I might have otherwise expected to be a bit snooty in the parliamentary party, I think were quite forgiving.
00:14:14
Speaker
And there's a reason for that, though. I mean, can I just say you earlier talked about the idea that I defected. Defection is quite a pejorative word. I would say that actually i earned the right to switch sides and I earned the right to switch sides because I did something that no other member of parliament I think had successfully done since I believe 1926. That is to say I changed sides, but I resigned my seat in parliament and went back to my constituents to seek their permission in a by-election and I then held my seat in the general election that followed under my new colours.
00:14:48
Speaker
So that willingness to actually subject myself to the will of the the electorate, I think, slightly neutralized the idea that I was somehow treacherous or that I was somehow a defector.
00:15:04
Speaker
I played by the rules. I played fairly. i asked my boss, the constituents in Clacton, if they were willing to have me as their member of parliament under my new colors.
00:15:15
Speaker
and i i I felt very strongly about that and it was actually one of the sticking points when I was talking to Youkip about joining. I was absolutely adamant from day one that there needed to be a by-election.
00:15:30
Speaker
ah For several reasons, I felt that was the right thing to do. I felt it was the right thing to do. Firstly, just morally, if you're going to switch parties, you owe it to your voters who elected you as a Tory.
00:15:42
Speaker
You owe it to them to have the final say. But look, I also had my eye on the big prize, which was winning a referendum on getting Britain out of the European Union. I wanted to, in Clacton,
00:15:54
Speaker
test some of the ah ideas and techniques that we subsequently rolled out in the Vote Leave campaign. And I also felt that, look, for heaven's sake, if I couldn't win a by-election on the question of Europe in Clacton, we weren't going to win a referendum on the issue of Europe across the country.
00:16:11
Speaker
So i i I felt, you know, it was, um if I was serious about what we needed to do to win the referendum, um it was the perfect um pilot project.
Post-Brexit Abuse and Family Impact
00:16:24
Speaker
um I do want to bring it back though to the reaction to it because at the moment we live in social media era where abuse seems to be the norm. ah Was there any abusive comments to made made to you because of your decision?
00:16:39
Speaker
Very, very few at the time. um Very few. um Actually, if anything, I think the parliamentary party and and my former colleagues in the Tory party were, as I said, very gracious.
00:16:54
Speaker
But the unpleasantness manifested in itself a little differently. I first got wind of this after holding the seat in the general election in 2015. I was ah using public transport in Westminster, walking ah to a tube station, I think, with that Harry Cole.
00:17:13
Speaker
And I was set upon by a mob, and that was a very unpleasant experience, and I had to be rescued. I struggled to keep on my feet. The mob was extremely aggressive, Antifa nasties, and um the police, of course, um and the Crown Prosecution Service, obviously, because their two-tier um justice system did nothing.
00:17:33
Speaker
But that was a an unpleasant experience. And it was a an indication of what was to come. after the June 2016 referendum, in other words, after we had won the Brexit referendum fair and square, that's when things got really nasty.
00:17:52
Speaker
I was, for a period of time, unable to travel on public transport in London with my family because of the abuse I would get. And it was abuse, incidentally, stoked up and stirred up, I think, by the centrist ads, by the BBC types, by the sort of people who write columns for The Times.
00:18:08
Speaker
The demonization of UKIP, the vilification of UKIP, the demonization of those of us concerned about immigration, that had real live consequences for me and my family in London.
00:18:19
Speaker
And I think the most unpleasant thing wasn't on social media. It was when um my daughter was thrown out of her private school in West London. um a few weeks after the Brexit vote.
00:18:32
Speaker
um Again, I think this was the upper middle classes ah reacting ah hysterically um to Brexit, um losing all moral rationale or reason for their decision making.
00:18:46
Speaker
um But that that was the unpleasantness that I faced. It was after the Brexit referendum and it was the sort of people who frankly should have known better. So continuing over into the process of leaving the party. So I think this is one of the most interesting areas. Could you talk us through the formalities um in terms of what happens in the House of Lords, what happens administratively?
00:19:11
Speaker
What do you have to do, first of all?
Process of Resignation and Moral Necessity of By-Elections
00:19:14
Speaker
Sure. um I mean, obviously, I gave a press conference. I then said I was going back to Clacton. I drove up to Clacton in order to be a candidate in the coming by-election.
00:19:28
Speaker
But in the meantime, I i phoned up a terribly nice man in the House of Commons, ah David Natsler, I think his name was. He was the Commons clerk. And i I said to him, um you may have heard that I'm i'm looking to resign.
00:19:41
Speaker
um What do I need to do? And he said, ping me an email, I think. And I applied formally for a position. i can't remember, that there are two positions you can apply. ah the essential conceit of it is that you you become ah an office holder of the crown and they ah appoint you to one of these essentially vacuous positions.
00:20:02
Speaker
um But in becoming an officer of the crown, that makes you ineligible for being a member of the House of Commons and you then get a a formal letter. saying, ah ah by the way, i now you've been appointed an officer of the Crown, you are no longer member the House of Commons. So that's that's the sort of the formal mechanism.
00:20:20
Speaker
um In reality, it means ah talking to a Commons clerk and sending him an email and he sends you an email back. And do you keep that letter almost as ah you know a memento, almost a proud moment of your political history?
00:20:34
Speaker
and yeah I'm sure I've got it somewhere. Yeah. I mean, um yeah, I'm not one of those politicians who takes themselves so seriously. you know i If you visit my house, um I don't think you'll see any framed photos or framed letters of me as a a public figure. i I remember once going to the house of a...
00:20:57
Speaker
very, very senior, very, very grand Member of Parliament. And pretty much every wall had pictures of him as an MP. And there was some sort of ludicrous ah mural painted on the wall in House of Commons colours with the portcullis.
00:21:11
Speaker
I'm not one of those people. I mean, i I was in the House of Commons at one time in my life because I wanted to achieve change. um It was a great privilege to be in the House of Commons. um But being a Member of Parliament has never defined me.
00:21:27
Speaker
I dare say in a trunk in an attic somewhere. I'm not sure on which side of the Atlantic there is probably a copy of that letter, but it's not something I i take terribly seriously. And um let's let's talk a bit more about you risking it all by triggering the by-election.
00:21:42
Speaker
You've said some comments at the time. You stated that, ah When I change parties, it didn't occur to me not to hold a by-election. If my own electorate weren't supportive, what was the point? So yeah could you talk us why behind this decision? You've opened up a little bit more, but I think that there's a lot to discuss there.
00:21:59
Speaker
And maybe, you know, for future ah by-elections and and discussions like that of people walking across the aisle, ah your beliefs around that.
00:22:11
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, one thing that really, really annoyed me afterwards was a whole bunch of MPs. ah can't even remember their names. um They're not even household names in their own homes anymore.
00:22:22
Speaker
um But a whole bunch of MPs who are unhappy with Jeremy Corbyn or, I don't know, the Lib Dems or the Tories. I can't even remember the detail. But they switched parties or they tried to set up some new party or some such um nonsense.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah. And they didn't call a by-election. And I think that should make people really quite angry because look, if if you are elected as a Labour MP or a Tory MP, okay, sure, there'll be some people who vote for you because you're Bob or Fred or whatever.
00:22:56
Speaker
But most people, let's be honest, most people in most constituencies most of the time will vote for you because you represent a party that best represents their their views So if you forsake and give up that badge, I'm not saying if the party kicks you out, that's a little differently.
00:23:15
Speaker
But if you give up that badge, I think it's just as a matter of honesty, you need to go back and say, hey, guys, um this is who you elected me as. I've changed my mind.
00:23:29
Speaker
do you want me to still represent you? It's it's just basic integrity and honesty. I was also very struck by the fact that and until 1918 in Britain, if a backbencher was invited to join the government, they would have to, because they were becoming ah an office holder of the crown, they would have to have a by-election.
00:23:50
Speaker
And um it was a ah wonderful system we had, a convention we had, um which basically meant there was a of confirmation hearing for ministers involving every voter back in the constituency.
00:24:03
Speaker
And i I discovered this when I was in the House of Commons. And i'm i i used to think it was a rather magnificent convention, and it's one I think we we ought to bring back.
00:24:15
Speaker
So I certainly think this idea that your ultimate loyalty is to your constituents um is is ought to be central to our parliamentary system, and we've certainly lost sight of it.
00:24:28
Speaker
ah Would you also extend that maybe electoral reform to by-elections as well in terms of people changing parties? Do you think that that should be enforced as well?
00:24:39
Speaker
Well, I've always avoided... um putting my name to proposals to make it compulsory for MPs switching parties to call by-elections. and And the reason for that is because of unintended consequences.
00:24:52
Speaker
You might expect everything I've said to make me think, well, you know, make it compulsory. But if that were the case, if if it was a requirement, um such are the sort of nefarious requirements ah behavior of the the whips, they might well actually use that almost to sort of bully MPs into doing what they wanted. um it would give whips ah a sort of further hold over individual backbenchers.
00:25:20
Speaker
So I'm not sure that compulsion is the way forward. I think the expectation. We live in an age where increasingly opinion and popular expectation is being set organically by the people that since Elon Musk bought Twitter, the ability of a small clique of people in BBC studios to define what is and what is an acceptable behavior, that that that's gone.
00:25:45
Speaker
I just think it should become a a cultural norm um that if you switch parties, you should be expected. to hold the by-election and that the that the um vilification of you in the public mind if you don't should be such that it would be unthinkable for you not to.
00:26:01
Speaker
um I'm not sure compulsion is the way forward there. So let's look at the campaign because obviously with all this attention around it 2014 was not your typical by-election campaign.
Impact of Clacton By-Election on EU Referendum
00:26:14
Speaker
So how did it differ from a normal typical maybe general election or by-election of previous years?
00:26:21
Speaker
Well, obviously in a general election, you get a far-hard turnout. um Why? Because it dominates the news. um People are choosing a government, a significant chunk of the population who aren't really that animated by a particular issue will go and vote in a general election in the way they went in a by-election.
00:26:42
Speaker
um So that's the obvious difference with the general election. i mean, you know, we... we Every few years, you you you get the commentary at talk about a by-election and say, this is a really significant by-election and it's broken records for the following reason. and I think, you know, the Clacton by-election, I think, so I think technically the largest swing to any one party in British electoral history.
00:27:05
Speaker
But i don't think we should read too much into that. every The dynamics of every by-election are a little different. The reason why i think the Clacton by-election was significant is because the dynamic was that we were heading into a general election. We were about six months out from a general election. In fact, one of the concerns I had in triggering the by-election is that I feared that the government may not call a by-election and try to see if they could go all the way into a general election without having to call a by-election.
00:27:38
Speaker
So the election the general election was looming. And the key question was, is it going to be Labour under Ed Miliband or David Cameron, ah Conservative, possibly in coalition with the Liberal Democrats?
00:27:50
Speaker
um By triggering that by-election, one was very much putting the Europe question front and centre. And I think it's significant. I mean, I think the true significance of the Clacton by-election wasn't in me getting elected. it wasn't the the size of the swing.
00:28:04
Speaker
It was enforcing ah shift in the general election. David Cameron unexpectedly won a majority. He did much better than expected, having promised a referendum.
00:28:18
Speaker
Miliband, who specifically ruled out referendum, underperformed and did particularly badly. And I think the reason, and it's an overlooked reason, the reason why Cameron won that majority and Ed Miliband was so badly beaten is because of the referendum.
00:28:36
Speaker
Because the Clacton by-election and UKIP put the idea of a referendum front and center, David Cameron offered the voters what they clearly wanted, Miliband didn't.
00:28:46
Speaker
That is why we got a referendum and a majority Cameron government to pass the legislation for that referendum. That that is the significance of the Clacton by-election. In terms of me getting elected as a person, a minor footnote in history.
00:29:01
Speaker
Just continuing on that point of what, as as you've said there, what the voters wanted. During the campaign, you took part in what Clacton and Frinton Gazette described as the biggest public meeting in Clacton's living memory.
00:29:15
Speaker
um With that event, do you think that that signalled maybe the difference, which I was kind of hinting at, to a typical general election or a typical kind of campaign that this focus was on what the people wanted? Was that what the message was that you wanted to get across?
00:29:33
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i I struggle to remember any political meeting that had happened in the decade or so. had been active in politics before then, when more than half a dozen people of the party faithful would turn up for anything.
00:29:47
Speaker
You know, during general elections, the church would always host a debate and you would get, you know, ah hundred or committed Tories and a hundred or so committed labor activists all turning up and and and cheering on their candidate.
00:30:00
Speaker
But what was extraordinary about the Clackton by-election is that you got people who weren't previously engaged in politics, not just turning up, but turning up in their thousands, literally in their thousands. And I i think During the Clacton by-election, Matthew Paris, a typical sort of centrist times columnist, um the type who have ah tried to demonize the views that people like me hold, wrote a very condescending piece suggesting that Clacton was, as he put it, the past.
00:30:30
Speaker
Actually, I think he got 180 degrees wrong. The blue collar insurgency that we see in Clacton the engagement in politics by people who are normally disengaged, the yearning for something different.
00:30:45
Speaker
Actually, that started in Clacton. It was a straw in the wind. And we tapped into this. People people talk about the Red Wall, by which they mean all those former Labour voting seats that then voted for Boris Johnson's Tory party, which now switched back to voting Labour.
00:31:02
Speaker
um That kind of blue-collar... um insurgency that blue-collar search for something else I think Clacton was the straw in the wind behind that movement the revolt of the ah British working class um it began in Clacton Clacton tapped into that the Clacton by-election tapped into that I think I was very successful in harnessing that vote um as a constituency MP I had assiduously cultivated that vote and it came out for me in very very large numbers
00:31:35
Speaker
So I want to now talk about your time in UKIP. um And despite being UKIP's only MP, it's been reported that you and leader Nigel Farage had quite a few disputes.
00:31:46
Speaker
What were these
Complex Relationship with Farage and Exit from Politics
00:31:47
Speaker
about? Are these overreported? Did you have a better relationship than what the media portray with Nigel Farage? I mean, right now I have a pretty good relationship with Nigel. We're on texting terms and I admire what he's done. I think he's done some great stuff, but it wasn't always ah straightforward relationship. And there were there were three basic reasons why I think ah we we didn't always get on. First was tactical.
00:32:13
Speaker
In Clacton, I showed how to win elections. um UKIP didn't understand how to win elections and um there were differences in the tactics of fighting seats.
00:32:27
Speaker
I took my approach in Clacton into the general election and i I won the seat a second time. Nigel tried his approach in Thanet and didn't win.
00:32:39
Speaker
So I think there you have, in effect, a clinical trial showing up was the Carlswellian approach to winning by-elections the right way or the ah Farage way of winning by-elections the right way. Clearly the Carlswell way of winning by-elections was the right way.
00:32:53
Speaker
i would say one of the reasons why Nigel won my old seat in the most recent general election and indeed several other seats was precisely because ah decade on they actually did what they should have done in the 2015 general election. They adopted that hyper-local campaigning.
00:33:14
Speaker
um But there were differences of opinion um and an unwillingness to learn from me. And you know um I think Nigel would have been an MP 10 years ago if if he had adapted sooner.
00:33:27
Speaker
So there were those tactical differences. There were also strategic differences. that Nigel and UKIP spent their formulative years trying to win a slice of the vote, trying to get from 2% of the vote in an election to maybe 10% of the vote in election.
00:33:44
Speaker
And the technique they used to try to do that was to grab attention. And unfortunately, everything they did was predisposed towards seeking attention.
00:33:56
Speaker
Actually, to be effective in a referendum where you need 50% plus one of the vote, you You mustn't simply grab attention. You must persuade people.
00:34:07
Speaker
And it's a very different strategy. The Vote Leave campaign, Dan Hannon, Matt Elliott, myself founded that. We hired Dominic Cummings to run it. the the The core belief in Vote Leave was the idea that we had to win over the middle ground.
00:34:24
Speaker
And that meant not saying the things that excite me as a Eurosceptic. It means saying things that will change the opinions and the views of people in the middle. Nigel never bought into that. So there was a fundamental sort of strategic difference of opinion as to how we should win the referendum. And in the subsequent referendum, Matt Elliott ran our vote leave um um with Dominic Cummings. History has been slightly revised by those who are better at briefing journalists than actually running campaigns.
00:34:54
Speaker
Matt Elliott ran that campaign extremely effectively um using the ah strategy that we had outlined. And that's why we won. Then the third reason why there were differences with Nigel was, I think, what you might call personnel or maybe you might even call them courtier issues.
00:35:15
Speaker
i I think Britain needs serious people for serious times because we're in a serious mess. I know that the Conservatives have, over the past 10, 15 years, not been serious people.
00:35:30
Speaker
i I sometimes think that some of those around Nigel aren't serious people. We saw the other day a recent appointee of his going on prime time television and frankly sounding rather odd.
00:35:42
Speaker
um i I had differences of opinion with Nigel over what I regarded as the need for high caliber people, serious people, um rather than court jesters.
00:35:55
Speaker
um i feel that I felt that there were too many court jesters. I ran into conflict with some of those court jesters. But I think, again, my analysis was right.
00:36:07
Speaker
And Continuing into, you know, your history in the party there, as you said, the Brexit vote happened in 2016 and then you left ah Parliament in 2017.
00:36:19
Speaker
Was that because you felt the job was done or did you still feel that things had to be done? But now was not your time to be involved in British politics at that moment. Partly I was exhausted. i mean, I had been working on this for 12 years.
00:36:36
Speaker
I was physically exhausted. I was emotionally exhausted. um i i think the biggest mistake I made in politics was to not leave the House of Commons immediately after the June 2016 referendum. But in fairness to me, I slightly felt that I had um caused enough electoral excitement in Clacton.
00:37:01
Speaker
um So it was always my intention to to to quit, um but um I didn't say so when Theresa May called an election early. um that That brought forward the moment at which I was to quit.
00:37:16
Speaker
um I felt that I should quit, A, because i i I felt that the fundamental question of Britain's membership the EU had been resolved. Now there was a lot of drama.
00:37:30
Speaker
particularly when Gove and Johnson managed to knife each other in the back and in effect install ah Theresa May as Prime Minister. um That was ah a pretty um extraordinary ah misjudgment on the part of um those supposed leading Eurosceptics.
00:37:49
Speaker
um I was slightly surprised in hindsight as the extent to which um people like John Bercow and The judges that sit on the Supreme Court um would seek to overturn the the Brexit vote.
00:38:05
Speaker
um But the fundamental um question had been settled.
Advising on Post-Brexit Governance Challenges
00:38:10
Speaker
um I think when history is is written, people will realize that um the key moment was June 2016. I certainly felt that was the key moment.
00:38:20
Speaker
I felt I played my part. um What I then wanted to focus on outside the House of Commons was trying to advise an incoming conservative majority administration on how to re-engineer Whitehall.
00:38:35
Speaker
Having obtained a self-government, I could see having been a backbench member of parliament and a close observer of these things, I could see that having obtained self-government, we would discover the extent to which we were dysfunctional when it came to self-government.
00:38:50
Speaker
Membership of the EU has in effect in effect concealed the extent to which we were run dysfunctionally at home. um And so i I got to work outside the House of Commons, putting together a blueprint to to re-engineer Whitehall.
00:39:07
Speaker
um And i I felt that um when Boris Johnson became prime minister, he would have a majority and he would be able to to do something with this blueprint. And I worked pretty hard behind the scenes on this blueprint.
00:39:21
Speaker
um It's my great regret that Boris Johnson had this great opportunity to make the profound changes in the administrative state that Britain needs and failed to do it. And when I realised, and you can't blame COVID on this, I know Dominic Cummings will try and say, it was COVID. No, no, no.
00:39:38
Speaker
They had lost interest in doing this pre-COVID. um They blew the opportunity. um And I remember saying to them, if you don't make these changes to Whitehall, you will be in office but not in power.
00:39:52
Speaker
And sure enough, that that's what happened. And I realized that they weren't serious about changing the way that the British state functions. And I realized um things were going to come to a sorry mess.
00:40:06
Speaker
I hate to say I could see it coming. And um i I felt... um that my ability to get the Johnson majority government to make the changes in Whitehall that are essential, um yeah that simply wasn't going to happen.
00:40:22
Speaker
um If only they had. Do you feel disappointed or do you feel it was a missed opportunity not to continue as well to be able to at least have some input in the way that Brexit unfolded?
Opposition to Conservative Lockdown and Net Zero Policies
00:40:38
Speaker
I couldn't practically have...
00:40:43
Speaker
stayed um in the conservative fold, if only because of lockdowns. I mean, I just, um I was so outraged by the idea that millions of people should be put under house arrest um because of seasonal flu.
00:40:59
Speaker
It was so obvious to me at the time that this was a gross, monstrous overreaction. There's no way I would have been able to remain part of that party. I would have almost certainly resigned um over net zero. I think net zero is extraordinary monumental for me.
00:41:20
Speaker
So I, you know the idea that I could have um remained in the conservative fold and steered them on the issue of of of of of Brexit. no i mean, the the the key issue was to win the referendum try to, from outside the House of Commons, offer them a blueprint to make government competent and capable again.
00:41:41
Speaker
um you know um on on on both issues, um they only ended ended up doing the right thing under duress. um But, you know, looking forward,
00:41:54
Speaker
um Clearly, Boris Johnson dropped the ball. Clearly, the British state is dysfunctional. Clearly, Whitehall um and the civil servants run the show. Clearly, it doesn't matter who you elect. You get the same Whitehall-made policies.
00:42:09
Speaker
There's a realization that um The country needs a restoration, that it needs far-reaching change. In fact, in the past few months, I've dusted down the blueprints for reform that I offered to Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings in 2019-2020 and have started to reform and amend those proposals and offer them to new players. And I suspect that the next Conservative majority government will will implement these reforms um as Boris Johnson should have done four or five years ago.
00:42:39
Speaker
Well, I do want to ask about the future as well, because you said you're on texting terms with Nigel Farage. And in 2016, you said that being a new cook was far too much fun to quit.
00:42:51
Speaker
Do you want to recapture those moments? Do you think there is a prospect that those blueprints could actually be brought over to reform and you might be an MP for them in the future? I don't think I'm going to be an MP for a simple reason. I'm I spent 12 years doing that. It takes it out of you. I hugely admire people who are MPs. But um i sort of I think if you're in elected politics, you can read from the script.
00:43:18
Speaker
My job is to write the script. and that's what I'm doing. I'm based in America now and my day job is to um implement free market reform in the state of Mississippi, something I've been doing for four years and i I think it's starting to have significant impact on ah GDP trajectory growth here.
00:43:36
Speaker
But as a side hustle I certainly think I can and i indeed I am um helping shift the debate in the UK. For example today I published in a national newspaper in Britain a six-part proposal to reform the welfare system to make sure that there is a public benefit test for non-UK nationals, so that before they are able to claim benefits, they would have to pass a public benefit test. us Those already living in social housing in Britain, nearly half of social housing in London is occupied by foreigners,
00:44:07
Speaker
they would have to take the public benefit test and it would form the basis for people to lose access to welfare and lose access and be evicted from their social housing if they were foreigners who were welfare dependents in Britain.
00:44:20
Speaker
And ultimately it would lead to deportation proceedings for foreign nationals living in the UK who have no right to be here. So i i think I'm able to come up with these sort of detailed legal plans and offer them to ah future incoming administration. Now,
00:44:36
Speaker
I don't know if the next administration is going to be a reform-led administration under Nigel Farage or if it's going to be a conservative administration under Robert Jenrick.
00:44:46
Speaker
Sorry, I should say maybe Kemi Badendock. i I think the most likely scenario is a Jenrick-led conservative administration. Why do I think that? A process of elimination.
00:44:59
Speaker
I want Kemi Badendock to do well, but I see little evidence that she's improving and um that that I think is is ah is a problem. I've yet to hear her give a significant speech on the economy and I worry that she is too influenced by a coterie of Govists and essentially if you're being advised by people who are of the Govist frame of mind You're going to play parlor games in the House of Commons. You're never actually going to ah stand for principle.
00:45:29
Speaker
um You're going to wear policy initiatives like a fashionista wears clothes. um You're not going to be seen as a serious person for serious times. So i I suspect she, um I suspect her days are numbered as a Conservative Party leader.
00:45:44
Speaker
Robert Jenrick on the other hand is clearly striking a note. He's clearly got the intellectual fiat. He's put together a formidable team of people. He's got that rare knack of being able to use social media to communicate. In fact, he's the one person in the country who I think does social media even better than Nigel Farage.
00:46:02
Speaker
And then there's Nigel Farage. Now everyone at the moment seems to be of the view that reform is gonna form the next administration. Forgive me, but I've been here before. I remember when UKIP was on 20-something points in the polls and we were heading towards an election and everyone would say that UKIP would have the balance of power and would we have 50 MPs or 60 MPs and easy come, easy go.
00:46:30
Speaker
i i think the election, the next election is a long way away. I think there's likely to be some kind of fiscal crisis, a sort of bond strike. we've We've got that clown of ah of a chancellor.
00:46:41
Speaker
I can't even remember her name, ah the one with the disingenuous CV. um Eventually there will be a fiscal crisis. um I think people will vote and want a serious leader.
00:46:57
Speaker
um I'm just not sure that reform is going to tick that box. um I don't see the evidence of a team around Nigel. I wish there were.
00:47:08
Speaker
i wish there were more people like Tice. He seems a man of gravitas. um I was going to say I wish there were more people like Rupert Lowe, but look what happened to him. I mean, I think that's the problem. um No, i I think ultimately you're looking at a generic government in four or five four three or four years' time.
00:47:26
Speaker
And um I think if they buy into this restorationist idea, these these detailed policies to control the borders, to remigrate a large number of people in the country who shouldn't be in the country, to overturn the judicial activists, um to ah control public spending, i think that's the likely scenario. I think it's the best case scenario.
00:47:50
Speaker
And you don't have any yeah inclination to to be directly involved, but you will be advising from the outside in? the The dog in the fight I have is my country.
Advocating for Political Reform and Future Leadership
00:48:02
Speaker
I want my country, Britain, to do well. I want these things to be done. the the The only chance that Britain has of being a prosperous country. The only chance we have of being a country where our children and our grandchildren have a better quality of life than than we do is to make these far reaching changes.
00:48:21
Speaker
um I don't really care who does it. I just want it done. I'm giving you my view as to who I think is most likely to have the competence to do it. so In America, we had two presidencies of Donald Trump, early early stage of Trump two.
00:48:39
Speaker
My fear is that if reform gets in, if reform forms an administration, it will be like Trump won. That is to say there will be lots of theatrics, there will be lots of angry tweets, there will lots of high drama.
00:48:55
Speaker
But will things actually change? We need mass deportation, for example. We need to figure out a way of removing from the country people who shouldn't be in the country and people who live in the country as foreigners at our expense. These are quite legitimate outcomes.
00:49:12
Speaker
In order to do that, it's not enough to glibly say you're going appoint a minister for deportation. You need more than slogans. You need a detailed strategy to overcome the judicial obstinacy, to overcome the resistance of the officials, and to make sure that you begin the mass deportation.
00:49:33
Speaker
it can be done, but it's going to take serious people with a serious plan. I'm afraid I just don't see it in reform. So let's move on to the concluding comments. um First of all, how impactful do you believe your ah movement to the UKIP party? I won't use the word defection because you you explained your reasoning behind it. But Yeah. how How impactful do you believe your move to UKIP was ah and influencing larger trends that eventually led to the Brexit vote outcome?
00:50:07
Speaker
I mean, you know, we all have a habit of seeing ourselves as being at the centre of everything. and And so I say what I'm going to say with that caveat. um and no No one in politics should take themselves too seriously.
00:50:20
Speaker
um
00:50:23
Speaker
i I think the significance of the Clankton by-election was to force David Cameron to give a commitment to pass legislation to hold a referendum within the first hundred days of an administration if he had a majority. he He shifted his position and promised that.
00:50:43
Speaker
Up until that point he had never given that clear commitment. From his Bloomberg speech onwards, he had tried to commit to a renegotiation. It was the Clackton by-election that forced him to commit to passing referendum legislation within the first 100 days.
00:51:00
Speaker
The second thing it did is it forced the Conservative Party to become the party of a referendum, in contrast to Miliband, who wasn't in favour of referendum. And I think ultimately that is what settled 2015 election.
00:51:15
Speaker
So that I think is the significance of the Clacton by-election.
00:51:19
Speaker
I like to think that the Clacton by-election might have given UKIP, then the Brexit party, now now reformed that that sort of Farage used force, a Philip.
00:51:30
Speaker
um Actually, I think the subsequent failures of the Tory party under Theresa May and Boris Johnson did more than anything to put Nigel into business. I think if there's a sort of secondary consequence of the Clacton by-election,
00:51:45
Speaker
It gave us a laboratory in which to pioneer and test some of the data-driven techniques that we used during the Vote Leave campaign.
00:51:56
Speaker
Now, very few pundits have understood this. Very few journalists really have a granular grasp of of these things. um So the story's never really been told. But um what we did in Clacton allowed us, I think, to do things in the Vote Leave campaign that ensured that we won.
00:52:16
Speaker
And looking back now with the benefit of a decade's distance, do you still believe that the the the decision was worth it?
Post-Politics Journey and Advice to MPs
00:52:24
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. and Look at where I am now.
00:52:28
Speaker
ah um um Imagine if I was sitting in the House of Commons, um
00:52:35
Speaker
living under the tyranny of IPSA, the dreadful Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, um having to take um um diversity awareness training courses no doubt in order to become a member of parliament um think of the incredible frustrations that i would have now instead i i had this wonderful opportunity to be in the united states to advocate for freedom in a part of the world that is genuinely embracing freedom lowering taxes we we passed legislation to eliminate the state income tax two weeks ago
00:53:09
Speaker
um We passed the legislation to radically deregulate the labor market. um This is why we're growing so fast. I get to do all that. And then as a side hustle, I get to write papers like my Milestones essay, like my paper on welfare reform, like a paper I've got coming out in a few weeks time on how to deport radical Islamists from the UK.
00:53:32
Speaker
I get to do all of that. And I weirdly think I probably get a better hearing um amongst right of centre figures in British politics now than I ever did when I was a Tory MP.
00:53:46
Speaker
I don't know if that says more about me or more about the Cameroons or more about the um kind of people who now represent the right in in in Britain today. But um goodness, i i i I think I ah played a blinder by leaving when I did.
00:54:04
Speaker
And what advice would you give to MPs considering switching parties today? do Do you think that this is something that actually more politicians should undertake to get their views, their stances, to to put powerful lines in the sand and actually change legislation?
00:54:22
Speaker
I was taught politics at Charterhouse by a wonderful teacher called D.R. Thorpe. He died quite recently, but he was a very famous political biographer, wrote some brilliant biographies of ah key figures.
00:54:35
Speaker
And I remember as a sort of 16 year old him teaching me that the the fundamental tension in politics is those who stick to their principles and damn their party and those who damn their party and stick to their principles. And I remember As an A-level student always thinking that if I were in politics I would stick to my principles and damn my party.
00:54:55
Speaker
That would be my advice. Stick to principles. um If you're willing to stick your principles you shouldn't have any reason to fear the voters. It's better to lose at the hands of the people sticking to your principles than to win and retain your seat and your vacuous position in the House of Commons and stand for and be nothing.
00:55:18
Speaker
think of Think of a legion of people under David Cameron's prime ministership or under Theresa May's prime ministership or under Boris Johnson's prime ministership or under Gordon Brown or Tony Blair's prime ministership who thought they were important at the time, who had a red box, who had lobby correspondents fawning over their every word.
00:55:39
Speaker
Where are they now? They're not even household names in their own home. In fact, they probably decorate their houses with all the paraphernalia of their shabby political career to try to convince themselves they will want something.
00:55:50
Speaker
They lost sight of their principles if they ever had any. And was their career worth it? Was their life worth it? I doubt it. Stick to your principles. If you stick your principles and you ultimately lose the game in Westminster, you can always look at yourself in the mirror and know who you are.
00:56:10
Speaker
That's far, far, far more important than being one of those here today, forgotten tomorrow non-entities that have run the country for the past 30 years. Stick to your principles. That would be my advice.
00:56:21
Speaker
Stick your principles and damn the consequences. So my last question to you, what does your story say about the health of British democracy?
00:56:33
Speaker
Gosh. um
00:56:36
Speaker
I'm not sure it's over yet. Let's wait and see. if If over the next 10 years we can have a British restoration, Britain doesn't need a revolution.
00:56:48
Speaker
I'm not a revolutionary, um but I am a rebel. We need a restoration. Like Japan in the mid 19th century, the people who ran Japan realized the country was hurtling towards obscurity unless it changed. They they implemented the so-called Meiji restoration.
00:57:05
Speaker
We need a British equivalent, a British restoration. If we're able to pull that off, then I think my story will probably say that the system works, that you can be a rebellious backbencher. You can trigger by-elections. You can nudge things towards a ah Brexit referendum.
00:57:26
Speaker
um When that fails to implement the whole hog of reforms needed, you can then be an activist, an agitator from the outside, and you can achieve change.
00:57:37
Speaker
um If Britain's gonna survive though, um democracy needs to be, it needs to work. um You've got in Britain a huge level of public dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the political system.
00:57:55
Speaker
And it's not misjudged. It's a fair assessment of the kind of morons who've been running the country for 30 years. The upper civil servants, the upper echelons of the civil service, the upper echelons of of both parties are full of people who are wrong on the macro issues of the day.
00:58:16
Speaker
People vote for change. They vote for controlled immigration. They vote for things and they never get it. Nothing ever changes. You get the same Sir Humphrey mediocrity running the country and running it into the ground.
00:58:29
Speaker
i I think democracy in Britain is going to work. I think that we can find a way of turning that popular dissatisfaction and yearning for something different into real meaningful change.
00:58:42
Speaker
I think we can. But if we can't, we will go the way of the Venetian Republic or the Dutch Republic. We will be parasited off by the self-serving elites that run us.
00:58:53
Speaker
So the story's not over. But we need to find a way of turning that popular dissatisfaction into real change. That's not just a case of voting for Nigel and seeing him behave like Trump won.
00:59:05
Speaker
It's not just a case of voting for Kemi and having her make speeches about multiculturalism that don't actually translate into change. We need to vote for someone like Jenrick with a majority and a plan to actually go into government, to drive out the leftist civil servants, to drive out the sort of people who run the Bank of England that has run the economy into the ground and destroyed productivity.
00:59:26
Speaker
to get to grips with the judges who prevent us from controlling our borders, to throw out to the country the million or so foreign nationals who live at our expense. That's what we need. And it can be done, and it will be done.
00:59:39
Speaker
But it needs to be done pretty urgently if we're not to become a third world country. Well, Douglas, whatever your political leanings, your decision in 2014 was one of the boldest.
00:59:50
Speaker
And as we've gone through the discussion today, maybe one of the most but ah impactful moves in recent political history. So I just want to thank you for your time today and all the insights that you've given.
01:00:02
Speaker
Wonderful. I'm so appreciative of you showing an interest. I'll be honest, um life slightly moved on and there's something... I haven't really thought about my time in Parliament and politics of the Clacton by-election in a while, so it's been lovely reminiscing with you.
01:00:18
Speaker
um ah Thank you for your interest, and I hope your listeners are interested too. um But, you know, let's not take myself too seriously. I'm a minor footnote in British political history, and the Clacton by-election is is my claim to be in the footnotes, but no more.
01:00:44
Speaker
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01:00:58
Speaker
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