Douglas Carswell should not be in Ukip, Nigel Farage has said of the party’s only MP, despite vowing not to interfere in internal politics after stepping down as leader.
Relations between Farage and the Clacton MP have soured since Carswell’s high-profile defection from the Conservatives in 2014.
“He shouldn’t be in the party,” Farage told LBC radio. “He doesn’t believe in what we stand for, he never has done … Since the general election all he’s done is sought to undermine us and divide us. And I notice even since Paul (Nuttall) has become leader we’ve had some statement from Carswell saying that he thought Theresa May’s doing a fantastic job.”
Carswell, who has remained close to many Conservatives, declined to back Farage’s Grassroots Out movement during the referendum and instead campaigned with its rival, Vote Leave, alongside the Tory Daniel Hannan.
However, Farage said Carswell showed no signs of defecting back to the Conservatives. “Last year at a Christmas party I bumped into David Cameron … We chatted and he said, ‘Tell me, Nigel,’ he said, ‘How are you getting on with Douglas Carswell?’ I said, ‘About as well as you did.’”
Asked by the presenter Nick Ferrari whether the former prime minister had laughed at his comment, Farage said: “He did. There are some people who just don’t fit in anywhere … I think Douglas is an individual. He’s got his own set of views on things but maybe party politics isn’t really for him.”
In the interview, Farage did not rule out standing for parliament again if the South Thanet general election result was declared void by Kent police and the electoral commission. They are investigating whether Conservatives broke the law by failing to declare tens of thousands of pounds of hotel bills for activists during the 2015 campaign. Farage lost the seat by 2,812 votes.
“Let’s see what happens in Thanet,” he said. “I don’t know. Right at the moment I’m enjoying life. I don’t have to wake up every morning thinking about the next set of elections next May.”