The United Kingdom Independence Party (commonly known as UKIP, [[IPA chart for English|pronounced /'ju.kɪp/]] ) is a libertarian free market British political party. The principal aim of the Party is the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union.
UK Independence Party | |
|---|---|
| Leader | Nigel Farage MEP |
| Chairman | David Campbell-Bannerman |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Headquarters | PO Box 408 Newton Abbot TQ12 9BG |
| Ideology | Euroscepticism, Libertarianism, Conservatism |
| Political position | Exact position disputed |
| European affiliation | none |
| European Parliament group | Independence and Democracy |
| International affiliation | none |
| Colours | Purple and yellow |
| Website | |
| http://www.ukip.org | |
UKIP currently has ten seats in the European Parliament, and two in the House of Lords. It also has around thirty local councillors on principal authorities, town and parish councils.
The intention of the party's policy is that the United Kingdom "shall again be governed by laws made to suit its own needs by its own Parliament, which must be directly and solely accountable to the electorate of the UK". [1]. Other aspects of policy include promises to reduce taxation, the preservation of pound sterling, being tough on crime and tighter controls on immigration and opposing the proposed extension to state funding of political parties.
The current party leader is Nigel Farage, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England, also the leader of the party in the European Parliament. His stated intention is to broaden public perception of UKIP beyond merely being a party seeking to get the UK out of the EU, to one of being a free market party broadly standing for traditional conservative values.
In the 2004 European elections, UKIP received 2.7 million votes (16.8% of the national vote), gaining twelve seats in the European Parliament. In the 2005 General Election, however, the party received only 618,000 votes (2.38% of the vote), considerably less than what it received in the EU elections, but an improvement on the 2001 General Election.
History
Early years
UKIP was founded in 1993, by Alan Sked and other members of the all-party Anti-Federalist League. The central aim of the party was to seek the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. The new party attracted many from the anti-European wing of the Conservative Party, which was split on the European question after the pound was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992 and the struggle over ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. UKIP candidates stood in the 1997 general election, but were overshadowed by James Goldsmith's Referendum Party. After the election, Alan Sked resigned the leadership and left the party which was, he said, 'doomed to remain on the political fringes'. However, Goldsmith's death soon after the election precipitated the dissolution of the Referendum Party, with a resulting influx of new UKIP supporters. The leadership election was won by millionaire businessman Michael Holmes, and in the 1999 elections to the European Parliament UKIP amazed commentators by picking up three seats and 7% of the vote. In that election, Nigel Farage (South East England), Jeffrey Titford (East of England), and Michael Holmes (South West England) were elected.
However, over the next few months there was a power struggle between the leader, Michael Holmes, and the party's National Executive Committee (NEC). This was partly due to Holmes making a speech which was perceived to call for greater powers for the European Parliament against the European Commission. In a stormy meeting, ordinary party members forced the resignation of both Holmes and the entire NEC. Holmes resigned from the party itself in March 2000. There was a legal battle when he tried to continue as an independent MEP until resigning from the European Parliament in December 2002, when he was replaced by Graham Booth, the second candidate on the UKIP list in South West England.
Jeffrey Titford was narrowly elected to the vacant leadership, and succeeded in healing many of the wounds left by the previous infighting.
2001 General Election
UKIP put up candidates in more than 420 seats in the 2001 general election, coming fifth in terms of votes cast (but with just 1.5% of the vote) and failing to win any representation at Westminster. It also failed to break through in the elections to the Scottish Parliament or the National Assembly of Wales despite those elections being held under proportional representation. This may be partly because the "National Question" is less focussed on European participation and more focussed on the continued link with the United Kingdom, but also perhaps because Eurosceptism is simply less popular outside of England. In 2002 Titford stood down as party leader, but continued to sit as a UKIP MEP. He was replaced as leader by Roger Knapman.
Kilroy-Silk
In late 2004, reports in the mainstream UK press speculated on if or when former Labour Party MP and chat show host Robert Kilroy-Silk would take control of the party. These reports were heightened by Kilroy-Silk's speech at the UKIP party conference on 2 October 2004, in which he called for the Conservative Party to be "killed-off" (following UKIP forcing the Conservatives into fourth place in Hartlepool).
Interviewed by Channel 4, Kilroy-Silk did not deny having ambitions to lead the party, but underlined that Roger Knapman would lead it into the next general election. However, the next day, on Breakfast with Frost, he criticised Knapman's leadership. After further disagreement with the leadership, on 27 October 2004 Kilroy-Silk resigned the UKIP whip in the European Parliament. Initially, he still remained a member, while seeking a bid for the party leadership. However, this was not successful, and Kilroy-Silk resigned completely from UKIP on 20 January 2005, calling it a "joke". Two weeks later, he founded his own party, Veritas, taking several UKIP members, including both London Assembly members, with him. Kilroy-Silk has subsequently resigned from Veritas.
2006 leadership election
In October 2005, Petrina Holdsworth resigned as Chairman of UKIP and from the party's National Executive Committee. She was replaced as Chairman "on an interim basis" by the party's former leader, Jeffrey Titford MEP. In December 2005, David Campbell-Bannerman, a former Conservative, became the new party chairman, appointed by the party leader, Roger Knapman MEP. Knapmans 4 year term as leader ended in June 2006, triggering a leadership contest that saw four challengers (Richard Suchorzewski, David Campbell-Bannerman, David Noakes and Nigel Farage) who emerged as victor on 12 September 2006.
Conservative Peers defect to UKIP
On January 9, 2007, two former Conservative Lords defected from the Conservative Party to the UKIP. Lords Pearson and Willoughby de Broke joined the UKIP as they felt the Conservative Party were not producing policy to support their beliefs. They had previously had the Conservative whip withdrawn when they had encourage votes to support UKIP. Other high profile Conservatives have defected to UKIP, but this is the first example of sitting Parliamentarians doing so. On Saturday 20th, 2007, the Earl of Dartmouth, also a former Tory peer, defected. [2]
Policies
Although the UKIP's original raison d'être was, without a doubt, the EU, it has now expanded from being a single-issue party to developing a full domestic agenda starting with a wide ranging review and establishment of a policy development group. UKIP have now produced detailed policy documents on taxation [3] and education [4] as well as becoming the only mainstream party to oppose the extension to state funding of political parties.
Its economic stance is based what it claims to be the need for much lower taxation in order to compete internationally; a position which has been reinforced since the election of Nigel Farage as leader in September 2006.
On Europe and related issues
UKIP contends (a) that the EU is extremely corrupt, (b) that it is undemocratic (they particularly resent the fact that European Commissioners, who are appointed by national governments rather than directly elected, have sole authority to initiate legislation in most policy areas), (c) that Britain's membership is very expensive and (d) that Britain's sovereignty is diluted by being part of a large bloc. While (a), (b) and (c) could in principle be addressed by radical reform of the European Union, it perceives (d) as being so fundamental a problem that only complete withdrawal from the Union can address it. For this reason, the aim of British withdrawal from the EU is written into UKIP's constitution. In line with this, one of UKIP's political goals is to break what it sees as the pro-EU consensus among the three established parties, and prevent the introduction of the euro and the adoption of a European constitution. UKIP is also opposed to compulsory metrication in the United Kingdom.
Opponents have claimed that UKIP is a Thatcherite party exploiting widespread Euroscepticism in Britain in an attempt to bring back characteristic Thatcherite policies such as dismantlement of the welfare state, elimination of legal restrictions on business, and an unquestioning alliance with the US. [5] Some have even stated that the party's name is misleading, claiming that it supports the UK's alliance with the USA to such an extent that it, by definition, does not support the independence of the UK. However, policies outlined in the party's 2001 manifesto often suggest otherwise: UKIP supports free international trade and it maintains a strong commitment to the National Health Service [6]. UKIP does in general support continuing military cooperation with the USA through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) but said in 2002 that it could only support a US invasion of Iraq if there was a clear United Nations mandate for such action.
Domestic policies
On 21 February 2006, UKIP announced a relaunch, declaring that they would be moving to fill the space left by the Conservative Party following the election as leader of David Cameron, who is widely perceived to have moved the party to the centre-ground. They announced that they would now be focussing on five policy areas, rather than concentrating solely on withdrawal from the EU. These are to be education, international trade, immigration, tax, and the way Britain is governed. To this end, Party Chairman David Campbell-Bannerman announced that there would be a sweeping policy review on libertarian lines.
UKIP is against the planned introduction of identity cards, believing them to be ineffective as a way of combatting fraud and terrorism, and an infringement of individual liberty. In December 2004 UKIP affiliated to the anti-ID card campaign, No2ID. Concern for civil liberties also led UKIP to oppose the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 [7], which gives additional powers to the UK Home Secretary in broadly defined "emergency situations". UKIP's Jeffrey Titford MEP condemned the bill as "totalitarian". [8]
UKIP opposes the adoption of a Devolved English parliament, preferring to argue that the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies can simply be abolished to return the United Kingdom to one Country with one Parliament. The party's Welsh section, UKIP Wales, persuaded the UK leadership to back a policy of outright abolition of the Welsh Assembly, and UKIP Wales campaigned on that basis in the Welsh Assembly elections in 2003.
Electoral performance 2004-2006
Overview
UKIP's first electoral success was the election of three MEPs in 1999 and it made further advances in 2004, but although increasing its share of the vote in both the 2001 General Election and 2005 General Election it did not achieve the same levels of vote as in those Elections to the European Parliament. In part this may be explained by the first past the post electoral system wherein small political parties tend to fare badly. But it is also of note that the European Elections occurred in mid-term - a period which usually sees a large Protest vote against the government and which has in the past resulted in short term boosts for small parties.
2004
UKIP's expectations were high before the 2004 European Parliament election, with a number of opinion polls – starting with one from YouGov - showed them on course to beat the Liberal Democrats and pick up a dozen MEPs. The prediction proved accurate, with UKIP winning 16.8% of the vote and taking third place nationally with 12 seats. UKIP won seats in eight regions, taking votes from all three major political Parties. It came second, ahead of both Labour and the Liberal Democrats, in four regions: South West, South East, Eastern and East Midlands. In the East Midlands region UKIP came within a percentage point of being top of the poll.
UKIP received assistance in coordinating its 2004 election campaign from Dick Morris, formerly Bill Clinton's campaign advisor who has since emerged as an advocate of US unilateralism and an opponent of the EU.
In the local elections on 10 June 2004, UKIP won its first ever City council seats in Kingston-upon-Hull and Derby. In London, an area where UKIP had previously polled badly, two UKIP candidates won seats in the London Assembly via the London-wide list. In the election for Mayor of London which was held on the same day, UKIP's candidate, the boxing promoter Frank Maloney, came fourth with 6.2% of the total vote.
2005
UKIP had hoped to sustain its momentum in the 2005 General Election, but despite fielding 495 candidates, the party failed to win any seats at Westminster. At the General Election, UKIP gained 618,000 votes, or 2.4% of the total votes cast in the election (an increase of 220,000 votes/0.9% from their result in the 2001 general election). Although respectable for a small party, and sufficient to place them fourth in terms of total votes cast behind the Liberal Democrats, the Liberal Democrats polled in excess of 20% of the total vote cast. Their best result on election night itself was in Boston & Skegness, where their candidate Richard Horsnell came third with 9.6% of the vote. However, in South Staffordshire, where the poll was delayed until June 23 2005 by the death of the Liberal Democrat candidate, UKIP's Malcolm Hurst gained 10.4% of the vote. In percentage terms this was UKIP's highest score of the general election.
2006
In the first Parliamentary election test of 2006, UKIP came eighth out of nine candidates in the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election on 9 February 2006, and their candidate lost his deposit, polling only 208 votes (0.6%).
In the 2006 English local elections, UKIP won its first borough council seat in Hartlepool but a councillor in Wirral who had recently defected to UKIP from the Conservatives failed to be re-elected for her new party, so that UKIP's overall net gain was zero. UKIP also beat Labour into fourth place in the Bromley and Chislehurst by-election in June 2006. The UKIP candidate, Nigel Farage, came third with 8.1% of the vote, ahead of Labour on 6.6%. This was the first time for many years that a party in government had dropped to fourth place in a by-election.
UKIP by-election performance
| Votes | % | Placing | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bromley and Chislehurst | 2347 | 8.1 | 3 |
| Dunfermline and West Fife | 208 | 0.6 | 8 |
| Livingston | 108 | 0.4 | 7 |
| Hartlepool | 3193 | 10.2 | 3 |
| Brent East | 140 | 0.7 | 10 |
| Ipswich | 276 | 1.0 | 5 |
| West Bromwich West | 246 | 1.3 | 5 |
| Preston | 458 | 2.1 | 5 |
| Tottenham | 136 | 0.8 | 7 |
| Romsey | 901 | 2.8 | 4 |
| Ceredigion | 487 | 1.9 | 5 |
| Kensington and Chelsea | 450 | 2.3 | 5 |
| Wigan | 834 | 5.2 | 4 |
| Hamilton South | 61 | 0.3 | 10 |
| Leeds Central | 353 | 2.7 | 5 |
| Winchester | 521 | 1.0 | 4 |
| Uxbridge | 39 | 0.1 | 10 |
| Wirral South | 410 | 0.9 | 4 |
| Barnsley East | 378 | 2.1 | 5 |
| South East Staffordshire | 1272 | 2.9 | 4 |
| Hemsworth | 652 | 3.0 | 6 |
| Littleborough and Saddleworth | 549 | 1.3 | 5 |
| Perth and Kinross | 504 | 1.2 | 5 |
| Islwyn | 289 | 1.2 | 9 |
| Dudley West | 590 | 1.4 | 4 |
Relationship with Other Parties
The Conservatives
UKIP is often seen as a "Tory pressure group", who's main aim is to persuade the Conservative Party to support withdrawal from the European Union. Many prominent members of UKIP are former members of the Conservative Party, for example former UKIP leader Roger Knapman). Also, some of the staff at Conservative Central Office are former UKIP candidates.
A recent ConservativeHome survey revealed that 43% of surveyed members of the Conservative Party felt that UKIP was the closest party to their views (apart from the Conservative Party itself)[9], with 66% either supporting or sympathising with the Better Off Out campaign.
In April 2006, Conservative Party leader David Cameron called UKIP members "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists" while talking on LBC radio in London after a question about UKIP using the Freedom of Information Act to force the disclosure of donors. UKIP has demanded an apology for the "closet racists" remark and threatened legal action for slander although this was later dropped, on the grounds that to sue the party would have to prove loss, and the comment had actually had a positive effect for UKIP. Conservative MP Bob Spink has criticised the remarks as has the Conservative supporting newspaper, The Daily Telegraph.[10]
The BNP
UKIP's constitution contains a clause guaranteeing that the party will not discriminate on the grounds of race and will be non-sectarian, and party rules require all candidates to declare that they have no past or present links with far-right organisations.
Despite its stated policies, some critics of the UKIP claim links between it and racist groups. Aidan Rankin, co-author of the party's 2001 manifesto, was once involved with the Third Way, which was founded by former members of the National Front (though he has since repudiated these views and has denied ever being a racist; it must also be stated that Third Way has never been as extreme as the NF). Alistair McConnachie, a five-times UKIP candidate and National Executive member, was suspended from the National Executive of UKIP for his views on the Holocaust [11]. Some other candidates were formerly members of the New Britain Party.
It has been a stated policy of the British National Party (BNP) to "eliminate" UKIP, as they perceive that UKIP's existence prevents them from capitalising on the issue of EU membership. The BNP has infiltrated UKIP in the past, notably in the cases of Mark Deavin, a UKIP head office researcher (hired by the party founder Alan Sked) who was exposed as a BNP agent in 1997 and John Brayshaw in 2004. The aim appears simply to have been to damage UKIP.
Ashley Mote, who was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for UKIP but had the party whip withdrawn, has joined the far right Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty grouping in the European Parliament, along side parties like the French National Front.
Minority members of UKIP
UKIP as a party takes a broadly individualist stance, and it opposes discrimination both positive and negative on the grounds of race and sexuality. Occasional attempts to create a special section within UKIP for ethnic minority members (on the lines of Labour's Black Section) have always been rejected on the grounds that this would be to treat such members as tokens rather than as full colleagues. Nonetheless, UKIP has stood a significant number of ethnic minority candidates in each of the general elections it has contested, in 1997, 2001 and 2005. The first ethnic minority candidate to represent UKIP in a parliamentary by-election was Ashwinkumar Tanna, a pharmacist who had previously been an independent candidate for Mayor of London. He represented UKIP in the Tottenham by-election, 2000; his campaign, which called for British withdrawal from the EU and fairer treatment for immigrants, was ignored by the media apart from a brief paragraph in Chemist and Druggist magazine. The best-known black member of UKIP is former TV chef Rustie Lee, who stood as a candidate in the 2005 general election and also appeared in the party's election broadcast that year. The most senior black member of the UKIP leadership is Delroy Young, another general election candidate, who was elected to the party's NEC in 2006 (coming 2nd out of 46 candidates). UKIP's only Muslim local councillor to date was Mohammed Yaqub, originally elected as a Conservative to Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council. He and a colleague defected to UKIP in 2004 but were defeated in their re-election bids a few months later.
On similar grounds to their refusal to set up an ethnic minority section, UKIP has discouraged attempts to set up a gay section. Such an organisation was proposed in 2004, and the party's then general secretary Nikki Sinclaire, who is an out lesbian, was asked to chair it, but she declined the invitation.
Current representatives
UKIP has two working peers in the House of Lords, who joined the party in January 2007 after defecting from the Conservative Party. Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Willoughby de Broke will form a new grouping within the House of Lords to actively seek to encourage more Lords to defect to the new UKIP group.[12]
UKIP has about thirty local councillors. In the 2004 elections, it won twelve seats in the European Parliament and two in the London Assembly (Damian Hockney and Peter Hulme-Cross).
In 2005, Robert Kilroy-Silk and both London Assembly members defected to form a new political party, Veritas. However, all three defectors have since left Veritas. Another MEP, Ashley Mote, who was elected as an MEP for South East England, had the UKIP whip removed on 15 July 2004, because he had not informed them previously of an imminent court case involving housing benefit fraud.
The remaining MEPs are:
Leaders of the UK Independence Party since 1993
- Dr Alan Sked 1993-1997
- Craig Mackinlay 1997 (acting leader)
- Michael Holmes 1997-2000 (MEP from 1999 on)
- Jeffrey Titford, MEP 2000-2002
- Roger Knapman, MEP 2002-2006
- Nigel Farage, MEP 2006-present
Eurosceptics in the European Parliament
In 2004, 37 MEPs from the UK, Poland, Denmark and Sweden founded a new European Parliament group called Independence and Democracy from the old Europe of Democracies and Diversities (EDD) group. The main goals of this group are to reject the Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe and to oppose further European integration. Some delegations within the group, including UKIP, advocate the complete withdrawal of their country from the EU.
The group's leaders are Nigel Farage of UKIP and Jens-Peter Bonde of Denmark.
See also
External links
- Official UKIP homepage
- UKIP's MEPs explain their aims
- Full history of UKIP : "Hard Pounding, The Story of the UK Independence Party"
Controversy
- Don't be fooled: The UK Independence Party is not harmless (Johann Hari, The Independent, 26 May 2004)
- Escape from UKIP (Aidan Rankin, New Statesman 14 June 2004)
- The Outsiders (Guardian special report on UKIP MEPs from 2001, when there were only two of them)
- MayorWatch interview with Damian Hockney, leader of the UKIP group on the London Assembly.