Douglas Carswell slams 'pathetic' Conservative Party
Rishi Sunak’s Tories are heading for a general election “annihilation”, former Ukip MP Douglas Carswell has warned.
He also launched a scathing attack on the Conservative Party, accusing them of buying into a “woke ideology” which had among other things “rendered Britain's fighting forces as operationally sub-optimal”.
Speaking via video link from the United States on Wednesday, Mr Carswell, who is now president of CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, told Express.co.uk: “I occasionally look across the Atlantic to see what's going on back in the old country and I have to say I find it deeply depressing.
“If this is a Conservative government then goodness help the country. We seem to have an option between a leftist Tory party and an even more leftist Sir Keir Starmer Labour Party.”
Mr Carswell quit the Tories for Ukip in 2014, resigning his Clacton seat and forcing a by-election which he then won.
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Rishi Sunak was dealth a double by-election blow this week (Image: Getty)
Although he retained his seat in the general election of the following year, he quit his new party two years after that and stood down.
He said: “I joined the Conservative Party fundamentally because of a belief that the Conservative Party was willing to make the changes to get Britain off its knees, to get the country going again.
“My first memories politically were of Margaret Thatcher coming along, finding a moribund, defunct country that was pathetic and couldn't get its act together, turning it around and actually making something of the country.
“And I have to say since she stood down in November 1990 what an absolute shower her party has become.
Sir Keir Starmer, Labour's leader, has his eyes on Number 10 (Image: Getty)
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“They’ve had a succession of third-raters who have actually been probably as ineffective as anything Labour has produced and probably in most cases to the left of Tony Blair.
“I think Tony Blair was probably a more effective Prime Minister than certainly David Cameron, Boris Johnson or Rishi Sunak.”
Mr Carswell continued: “What an absolute catastrophe this lot are. They're running the country into the ground, taxes are higher than they've been for 60 years, the woke ideology has taken over the institutions of the state and minister don't even know that half of this stuff is being done in their name, that’s how ineffective they are.
“I suspect actually work ideology has rendered Britain's fighting forces as operationally suboptimal and ineffective, defence procurement is an absolute catastrophe, immigration is a disaster and they're supposedly meant to be the party of Margaret Thatcher. It’s pathetic.”
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Gen Kitchen won in Wellingborough for Labour (Image: Getty)
He added: “I’m not talking purely the Conservative Party here, but the centre-right in Britain needs to be annihilated electorally not because I think short-term that would produce a better government, it would produce a worse government led by Starmer.
“But out of that annihilation, you can begin to rebuild what we need.
“In order to get to Margaret Thatcher we need to go through Ted Heath and Harold Wilson, we need to go through a process of reconstruction.”
He stressed: “The first thing you need is that several leading figures in the Conservative Party need to have their careers terminated either by losing their seats or by being discredited.
Douglas Carswell was a UKIP MP from 2014 to 2017 (Image: Getty)
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“But then you need a proper process of real self-examination. How is it that ever since George Osborne conned the Parliamentary conservative party into believing that Britain couldn't afford tax cuts, taxes have gone up and up?
“How come under a Conservative government immigration has gone up and up?
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“How come under a Conservative government which supposedly is committed to the defence of the realm we've managed to squander the fifth-largest defence budget in the world on ships that can't go to sea, in airplanes that can't fly?
“Once you ask those of elemental questions you can then begin to get the answers that you need.”
Betting website Star Sports has a similarly gloomy prediction for Mr Sunak after Thursday's by-elections saw Labour win both Wellingborough and Kingswood from the Tories. Labour is rated at 1/20 to be the largest single party, with odds of 4/1 being offered on Sir Keir winning more than the 419 seats won by Tony Blair in 1997.
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