A British politician is leading the charge to defund Mississippi public schools, build data centers, and ban DEI

Most Mississippians have probably never heard of Douglas Carswell.

They may not have heard of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy either.

But Carswell and the organization he runs are helping shape some of the biggest decisions being made at the State Capitol, from public-school funding and income taxes to culture-war legislation and massive data-center projects.

So who is he?

Carswell is a former British politician who spent 12 years in Parliament, roughly the British equivalent of Congress. He was elected as a Conservative, quit that party to join a smaller far-right party called UKIP, then left that party after years of public fighting with its leaders.

When Britain called a national election in 2017, Carswell chose not to run again.

A British political magazine called him “obsolete” and predicted that his next stop might be “one of those sinister US think tanks.”

Four years later, Carswell moved to Jackson to lead the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, commonly known as MCPP.

MCPP is not a government agency, and its leaders are not elected by Mississippi voters. It is a conservative advocacy organization that develops policy proposals, lobbies lawmakers, trains activists and promotes legislation.

And it has become increasingly influential.

MCPP has helped push efforts to send public money toward private-school expenses, eliminate Mississippi’s income tax, attack diversity programs and remove regulations supported by large corporations and wealthy special interests.

More recently, it has become a loud cheerleader for data centers, promoting the economic promises while giving far less attention to the concerns communities have raised about electricity demand, water use, infrastructure costs and the possibility that working families could be left paying part of the bill.

And who's paying for it? It's unclear. Despite bragging about its transparency, the MCPP receives nearly all of its money from tax-deductible private contributions... and the public is not told who provides most of that funding.

Carswell’s MCPP works hand in hand with Empower Mississippi, another unelected advocacy group pushing public money toward private schools. Both are connected to the national State Policy Network, while Mississippi families are left largely in the dark about who funds their campaigns.

Carswell’s own political transformation should also raise questions.

As a British lawmaker, he once called immigration a success and criticized hardline anti-immigrant politics as “angry nativism.”

In 2025, he posted, “From Epping to the sea, let’s make England Abdul free,” a message publicly condemned as racist in Britain.

That matters because Carswell is not just posting opinions online. He now leads an organization working to influence Mississippi law.

Mississippians did not elect Douglas Carswell. Most have never heard his name. Many do not know MCPP exists.

But while families are working, raising children and trying to keep up with their bills, this unelected organization is helping decide what happens to their public schools, their taxes and their communities.

Mississippians deserve to know who is writing the Republican playbook, who is paying for it and whose interests it actually serves.