UK Independence Party / UKIP

Submission 9,710

About

The UK Independence Party, often abbreviated to UKIP, is a British right-wing political party known for its advocacy of social conservatism, Euroscepticism and anti-immigrationism. Despite its relatively minor influence and stature within the United Kingdom, the party has garnered notoriety as a "xenophobic" movement in the news media and online for its staunch opposition to high immigration rates and Islamism.

History

The UK Independence Party (UKIP) was originally founded in 1991 as the Anti-Federalist League by Alan Sked. It wasn’t until 1993 that the party gained its current name however. In 1997, Alan Sked left the party due to, according to himself, growing influence of far-right opinions. Alan Sked has since then become a critic of the party.^[1] In the early years of the party, it was a relative minor force in British politics. The party was seen as a single-issue party, that issue being membership of the European Union, which the party opposes.

Party Expansion

In 2004, UKIP saw its first major breakthrough during the 8th quinquennial European Parliament elections after the party came in third in Great Britain with 2.6 million votes (16.1%), securing a dozen seats in the European Parliament. In 2006, Nigel Farage, a former commodity broker and ex-member of the Conservative Party, was elected as the new leader of UKIP. Under Farage's leadership, UKIP sought to expand beyond its Eurosceptic foundation by adopting a series of socially conservative policies, including restrictions on immigration, tax cuts, less interventionist foreign policies, and denial of climate change, and successfully rebranded itself as a right-wing populist party and a popular alternative for the British Conservatives who had grown discontent with their leader and prime minister David Cameron's policy shift towards social liberalism. UKIP's political momentum continued to grow in the next two European election as well; In 2009, the party came in second place with 13 seats after the Conservative Party, and in 2014, its presence in the European Parliament grew nearly double with 24 seats after receiving more than four million votes, the highest number of votes of any British party in the election. UKIP's victory was regarded as historic in British politics, as it marked the first time in over a century that a party other than Labour or Conservatives won the most votes in a nationwide election.

2015 British General Election

On May 7th, 2015, Great Britain held a general election. In the election, UKIP managed to gain 12,6 % of the votes. Yet despite this, the party only managed to gain one seat out of 650 in the House of Commons. This caused outrage among UKIP supporters and UKIP has since criticised the First-past-the-post system used in Great Britain with Nigel Farage declaring the system for bankrupt.^[2] If the British election was held using a proportional voting system, UKIP would have won 83 seats in the House of Commons.^[3]

2016 Local, Regional assemblies and parliaments elections

UKIP was overall succesfull in the local elections on May 5th, 2016, as it gained 26 seats in councils around England. Of particular note is the Thurrock Council in which UKIP gained 6 seats and grew equal in size to the Conservative Party, narrowly missing becoming the largest party by a single vote.^[31] In what was seen as a breakthrough for the party, UKIP managed to elect 7 members to the Welsh Assembly, including former Conservative MPs Neil Hamilton and Mark Reckless.^[32]

EU Referendum

In January 2013, David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, announced that the UK would hold a referendum regarding British membership of the Europan Union before the end of 2017. After the announcement was made, UKIP's leader, Nigel Farage, said that the news were a victory for UKIP.^[25] The UK Independence Party is working along side other organizations campaigning for a leave vote, including LEAVE.EU^[26], Grassroots out^[27] and Vote Leave, take control.^[28] The Leave campaign is also supported by most members of parliament of the Conservative Party^[29] and a few MPs from the Labour party as well, which includes Katy Hoey, Graham Stringer and Kelvin Hopkins^[30].

Online Presence

The UKIP maintains active presence in social media mainly through its official Facebook page^[6], which commands more than 490,000 likes, and the Twitter account, which has gained over 100,000 followers, both as of July 2015.^[8] On November 8th, 2012, A subreddit called /r/UKIPparty was created as a forum to discuss the party and its politics.^[9] UKIP operates a official youtube channel.^[10] There are several grassroots channels dedicated to uploading promotional material for UKIP, including RobinHoodUKIP,^[11] Ukippers^[12] and Ukipmedia.^[13]

Notable Figures

Nigel Farage

Nigel Paul Farage (Born April 3rd, 1964) is the current leader of the UK Independence Party. Since 1999 he has been a member of the European Parliament where he co-chairs the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group. Farage was a member of the Conservative party until 1992, where he left in protest due to the signing of the maastricht treaty. Farage was elected as leader of UKIP in 2006 but stepped down in 2009 to concentrate on winning a seat in the 2010 general election. Farage was then in 2010 elected as leader of the party again, after being defeated in the 2010 general election. After having lost in the 2015 British General Election in South Thanet, Farage resigned as leader of the party but was reinstated again after 3 days due to the party's national executive committee rejecting his resignation.^[4] Online, Farage has gained a fan following, particularly on 4chan. As of July 2015, Nigel Farage has over 270.000 likes on Facebook^[5] while on Twitter he has over 240.000 followers^[6]. The phrase “Can’t barrage the Farage” is often used in Farage threads and in Youtube videos. Farage is also used in images that are similar to Doom Paul.

Douglas Carswell

Douglas Carswell (Born 3rd may, 1971) is the only member of UKIP in the House of Commons. Formerly, he was a member of the Conservative Party. Douglas Carswell was elected for UKIP first in October 2014 in a by-election and then in the 2015 British General Election.

Can't Barrage the Farage

"Can't Barrage the Farage" is a phrase often used in threads dedicated to Nigel Farage and UKIP on 4chan. A search on archive.moe, a site that achives 4chan threads, reveals more than 10 pages of results.^[14]

UKIP Will Make Anime Real

”UKIP Will Make Anime Real” is a satirical phrase stating that one of UKIPs policies is to make anime real. The phrase is often photoshoped into fake election posters from UKIP.

#WhyImVotingUKIP

#WhyImVotingUKIP is a hashtag created by UKIP, asking its supporters to explain why they intended to vote for UKIP in the 2014 local and European election. After its creation, it was hijacked by critics of the party.