Mark Reckless

On 14 April 2019, Reckless left the Conservative Party Group in the Welsh Assembly over the party's failure to deliver Brexit. He then sat as an independent member of the National Assembly for Wales before joining until the Brexit Party the following month.

On 15 May 2019, Reckless stated his intention to form a new Brexit Party political group within the Welsh Assembly, along with Caroline Jones, Mandy Jones, and David Rowlands. He was subsequently announced as the leader of such group by Nigel Farage.

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".

A Eurosceptic, he was elected to the National Assembly for Wales, now known as the Senedd, in 2016. He campaigned for the Leave side in the 2016 referendum on membership of the European Union. He subsequently joined the Brexit Party and was appointed Leader in the National Assembly by Nigel Farage in 2019.

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.

In June 2015, Reckless was made Director of Policy Development by UKIP.

On 30 September 2014, Reckless applied for the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds and therefore ceased to be an MP. A by-election was called on 20 November, 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.

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 his close friend 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 2015 general election Reckless lost his seat to the Conservative candidate, Kelly Tolhurst.

Between 2002 and 2004, Reckless was a member of the policy unit at Conservative Central Office where he wrote 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.

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.'

He married Catriona Brown at Westminster Cathedral on 1 October 2011; the reception was held in the Palace of Westminster. His best man was Daniel Hannan MEP. Reckless had been the best man at Hannan's wedding.

He was previously elected as the Conservative Member of Parliament for Rochester and Strood in the 2010 general election. Reckless crossed the floor to join the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in September 2014; he won re-election as a UKIP member in a by-election held in November 2014, but lost his seat to the Conservatives in the 2015 general election.

Whilst a member of the House of Commons, 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.

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.

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 incumbent Labour MP to 3,780 in 2001 and 213 in 2005. He had served as a Medway councillor between 2007 and 2011.

Reckless was elected to the Home Affairs Select Committee in 2010 often appearing on Newsnight and other political programmes, arguing for the deportation of clerics Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada. He was one of parliament's most rebellious MPs. He was one of only six Conservative MPs to vote against increase of university tuition fees, and was a 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 because he was drunk. He said that he "did not feel it was appropriate to take part in the vote because of the amount he had drunk".

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.

After university, he trained as a barrister at the College of Law, gaining an LLB, and was called to the Bar in 2007.

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.

Mark John Reckless (born 6 December 1970) is a British Brexit Party politician serving as Member of the Senedd (MS) for South Wales East since 2016.

Reckless is a grandson of Henry McDevitt, who served as 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".