Preceded by Himself Spouse Catriona Brown (m. 2011) Succeeded by Kelly Tolhurst Party UK Independence Party | Succeeded by Himself Resigned September 30, 2014 Name Mark Reckless | |
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Preceded by Bob Marshall-Andrews (Medway) Full Name Mark John Reckless Born 6 December 1970 (age 53)
City of London, United Kingdom ( 1970-12-06 ) Political party UKIP (2014–present)
Conservative (until 2014) Alma mater Christ Church, Oxford
The University of Law
Columbia Business School Role Former Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom Previous offices Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom (2014–2015) Education Christ Church, Oxford, Columbia Business School, University of Oxford Similar People Douglas Carswell, Nigel Farage, Benjamin Disraeli, Alan Sked Profiles | ||
Mark Reckless Becomes UKIP's Second Westminster MP
Mark John Reckless (born 6 December 1970) is an English politician and a Member of the National Assembly for Wales, representing South Wales East. Having been elected a member of the Assembly representing UKIP in 2016, he renounced his UKIP membership in April 2017 and joined the Conservative group in the Welsh Assembly. He was previously elected as the Conservative Member of Parliament for Rochester and Strood in the 2010 general election, joined UKIP in September 2014, won re-election as a UKIP member in November 2014, but lost his seat to the Conservatives in the May 2015 UK general election.
Contents
- Mark Reckless Becomes UKIPs Second Westminster MP
- Mark reckless mp questions logic of borrowing money to fund overseas aid
- Education
- Early career
- Political career
- European Union budget rebellion
- Defection to UKIP
- Defection from UKIP
- Electoral history
- Personal life
- References
While a Conservative MP, Reckless was noted for his rebelliousness; he cast 56 votes against the whip between 2010 and 2014, making him the 13th most rebellious Conservative in the period. He led a rebellion of 53 Conservative MPs on the EU budget, which inflicted the first House of Commons defeat on the coalition government. From November 2010 he served as a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee.
Mark reckless mp questions logic of borrowing money to fund overseas aid
Education
Reckless was educated at Marlborough College before going up to Christ Church, Oxford, where he read philosophy, politics and economics. He then pursued postgraduate studies at Columbia Business School in the United States receiving an MBA. At Columbia, he studied alongside writer Jacob Appel and is the subject of several thinly-veiled anecdotes in Appel's satire, The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up.
After university, he trained as a barrister at the College of Law, gaining an LLB, and was called to the Bar in 2007.
Early career
In the mid-1990s, Reckless worked for UBS Warburg In the late 1990s he worked as a strategy consultant and associate in Financial Services Group at Booz, Allen & Hamilton.
Until his election in May 2010, Reckless had been a solicitor at Herbert Smith and had worked on legal matters that had had dealings with private investigators. He was a member of the Kent Police Authority from 2007 to 2011.
Political career
Between 2002 and 2004, Reckless was a member of the policy unit at Conservative Central Office where he published a book on deregulation policy as well as overseeing the development of the policy on directly elected police commissioners. The first police and crime commissioner elections took place on 15 November 2012.
Reckless was elected as the member of parliament for Rochester and Strood in 2010 with a 9,953 majority for the Conservative Party, having previously contested the Medway constituency in 2001 and 2005, reducing the majority of the previously serving Labour MP to 3,780 in 2001 and 213 in 2005. He served as a Medway councillor between 2007–2011.
Reckless was elected to the Home Affairs Select Committee in 2010 and was one of its most visible members often appearing on Newsnight and other political programmes, recently arguing for the deportation of clerics Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada. He is rated as one of parliament's most rebellious MPs. He was one of only six Conservative MPs to vote against the increase of university tuition fees, and has been a vocal critic of the government's energy policy, arguing that the government's Energy Bill introduced in December 2012 was 'a sad retreat for Conservatives'.
In July 2010, Reckless apologised for missing a vote on the budget after having had too much to drink. He said that he 'did not feel it was appropriate to take part in the vote because of the amount he had drunk'.
A vociferous Eurosceptic, Reckless is a noted critic of the European Court of Human Rights seeing it as 'eroding British freedom and democracy'.
He was also chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Georgia. The group's aims are 'to facilitate greater parliamentary awareness of developments in Georgia'.
On 30 September Reckless applied for the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds and therefore ceased to be an MP. A by-election was called on 20 November 2014 at which Reckless was nominated to stand as the UKIP candidate. He was returned as a member of parliament for UKIP, becoming the party's second elected MP.
European Union budget rebellion
On 31 October 2012, Reckless led a rebellion of 53 Conservative MPs which inflicted the first House of Commons defeat (307 votes to 294) on the coalition government. The Tory rebels voted with Labour MPs to pass an amendment calling for a real-terms cut in the 2014–2020 EU budget multi-annual financial framework. The coalition government supported only a real-terms freeze in the EU budget as a minimum. The amendment was not binding on the government, but damaged prime minister David Cameron's authority on Europe before key EU budget negotiations in November 2012. As a result of leading the successful rebellion, Reckless was voted 'Backbencher of the Year' by the Conservatives and finished third in a ConservativeHome poll of 'Backbencher of the Year', although the site's editor Tim Montgomerie announced that 'if UKIP readers had been included in the poll Mark Reckless would have topped the vote.'
Defection to UKIP
On 27 September 2014, Reckless defected to the UK Independence Party at its party conference in Doncaster, and announced his resignation in order to seek re-election at a by-election. He became the second Conservative MP in the space of a month to defect to UKIP, the first being Douglas Carswell. In a speech delivered to the conference, Reckless claimed that the Conservative leadership was 'not serious about real change on Europe', and that 'Britain could be better'.
Although he won the by-election on 20 November 2014 as a UKIP candidate, in the May 2015 general election Reckless lost his seat to the Conservative candidate, Kelly Tolhurst.
In June 2015, Reckless was made Director of Policy Development by UKIP.
In March 2016, Reckless was announced as UKIP's lead candidate for the Welsh Assembly Election region of South Wales East. He was elected on 5 May 2016.
Defection from UKIP
On 6 April 2017, Reckless left UKIP to join the Conservative Group in the Welsh Assembly, however, he did not rejoin the Conservative party. This move made the Conservative group the second largest in the Welsh Assembly. Upon leaving, he said, "I leave UKIP positively, having achieved our joint aim, a successful referendum to leave the EU".
Electoral history
See Rochester and Strood by-election, 2014
The Rochester and Strood seat was fought for the first time at the 2010 general election. Following its boundary review of parliamentary representation in Kent, the Boundary Commission for England renamed the Medway seat to Rochester and Strood. This is because the commission agreed that the term 'Medway' is now primarily used for the larger unitary authority.
Personal life
Reckless is the grandson of Henry McDevitt, a Fianna Fáil TD for Donegal East in Dáil Éireann, the Irish parliament, from 1938 until 1943. His mother emigrated to England when she was 17 to train as a nurse, however Reckless has said that he doesn't see his mother as an 'immigrant' and stated 'I don’t consider myself to have an immigrant background' On 1 October 2011 he married Catriona Brown at Westminster Cathedral, with a reception held in the Palace of Westminster. His best man was Daniel Hannan MEP. Reckless had been the best man at Hannan's wedding.