Beira, Mozambique being a favourite holiday destination for white Rhodesians. One reminder of this is the Grande Hotel, built by the Portuguese, near the shore of the Indian Ocean. By 1970, the city of Beira had 113,770 inhabitants. After independence from Portugal in 1975, many white ethnic Portuguese left the city. Mozambique was ravaged by a civil war from 1977 to 1992, opposing Marxist FRELIMO, which controlled the government, to the rebels of RENAMO, descending to near total chaos in a couple of years. The famine, disease and poverty-stricken country collapsed. In Beira, the famous Grande Hotel was occupied by around 1,000
Independence from Europe duly left UKIP and was in talks with the English Democrats, but cancelled plans to ally with them after they prematurely announced his joining the party. Nattrass, still a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), instead launched his own party after considering a career as an independent. An Independence Party's creation was announced in October 2013, being renamed An Independence from Europe on 7 March 2014 to avoid confusion with UKIP. Nattrass had previously considered the label 4 A Referendum. Electoral Commission records show that he had registered his own party significantly earlier, on 20 June 2012. From this date,