UKIP MPs want Nigel Farage to take a break

The leader of Britain's anti-EU UKIP party, Nigel Farage, should take a break, said the party's only Member of Parliament elected last week, fuelling the party's power struggle that started when Farage overturned his decision to resign.

The United Kingdom Independence Party, known as UKIP, came third with 12.6% of the vote at the May 7 election. Under Britain's first-past-the-post system in which candidates must
win individual seats UKIP won just one through Douglas Carswell in the southeastern coastal town of Clacton.

After failing to gain a seat in his southeastern English constituency, Farage fulfilled his pledge to resign as party leader. Three days later he reversed the decision, saying he had
been persuaded by party officials to stay on.

"Even leaders need to take a break. Nigel needs to take a break now," Carswell, who defected last year from the ruling Conservative Party, wrote in The Times newspaper on Saturday.

He ruled himself out as a challenger to Farage's leadership but said UKIP had, at times, failed to strike the right tone.

Carswell's comments come days after the party's campaign chief accused advisers of creating a "personality cult" around Farage, and after a big donor called for Farage to resign.