AceShowbiz - Colin Firth has withdrawn his support for Britain's Liberal Democrat party after they helped push through a controversial rise in U.K. student tuition fees. The "Bridget Jones's Diary" actor supported the party's leader Nick Clegg throughout his campaign to become British prime minister in May and was one of the group's most famous celebrity backers.

The Liberal Democrats formed a coalition government with the Conservative party after the election, and recently put forward a huge rise in the amount students will pay for a university education - even though Clegg promised fees would be scrapped if he came to power. The U-turn has seen mass student protests in London, many of which have ended in violence.

Firth insists he is also angry with Deputy Prime Minister Clegg and his party for their changing views - and reveals he has turned his back on them. He says, "I'm without an affiliation now. My compass hasn't stopped spinning. I think it's profoundly disillusioning if you are a student who has registered to vote simply because of what the Liberal Democrats were promising - and many, many did simply because of what the Liberal Democrats had to say about tuition fees and things. It's one of the reasons I went in that direction."