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UK Independence Party
right-wing to far-right Eurosceptic political party in the United Kingdom / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The United Kingdom Independence Party (often called UKIP, said "you-kipp") is a political party in the United Kingdom. Its policies promote conservatism, national conservatism, and Euroscepticism.
UK Independence Party | |
---|---|
Abbreviation | UKIP |
Leader | Vacant |
Deputy Leader | Nick Tenconi |
Chairman | Ben Walker |
Deputy Chair | Vacant |
General Secretary | Donald Mackay |
Founder | Alan Sked |
Founded | 3 September 1993; 30 years ago (1993-09-03) |
Preceded by | Anti-Federalist League |
Headquarters | Lexdrum House Unit 1 King Charles Business Park Old Newton Road Heathfield Newton Abbot TQ12 6UT[1] |
Youth wing | Young Independence |
Membership (2020) | ![]() |
Ideology | Hard Euroscepticism[3] Right-wing populism[4] Economic liberalism[5] British nationalism[6] |
Political position | Right-wing[7] to far-right[8][9] (2018–present) Historical: Single-issue (1993–1997) Right-wing[10] (1997–2018) |
International affiliation | None |
Colours | Purple, yellow |
Local government[11] | 0 / 18,725 |
Website | |
ukip |
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The party was founded in 1993, and they first won seats in the European Parliament in 1999. They won 3 seats in 1999, which was increased to 12 in 2004 and 13 in 2009. It is now 9. The party does not do well under Britain's 'First-past-the-post' system of elections and only had one seat in the British House of Commons, although they received 3.8 million votes (12.6% of the total vote) at the 2015 UK general election.
Supporters of UKIP mostly believe in the following things:
- The United Kingdom should leave the European Union.
- There should be more referendums on certain issues.
- British people should not have to carry ID cards.
In 2008 UKIP banned people who used to be members of the British National Party (BNP) from joining.
On 9 October 2014 Douglas Carswell became UKIP's first elected MP.[12] Carswell quit the party in March 2017.[13]